


dancing under red skies

by dayswithout



Series: dancing under red skies [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 02:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21312955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayswithout/pseuds/dayswithout
Summary: Buck hates Eddie Diaz on sight.aka, a soulmate au.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: dancing under red skies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536454
Comments: 45
Kudos: 981
Collections: Buck and Eddie are Soulmates





	dancing under red skies

****Buck hates Eddie Diaz on sight.

He hates his smiling eyes and the easy rapport he has with the team. The kind of rapport Buck spent months building up - this guy has it straightaway. He fits in too smoothly, slotting into the space between Hen and Chim like he’s always been there. Barging in on Buck's work. Encroaching on his space. Laughing when Chim calls Buck dumb. (That one stings a bit. Buck knows he’s not clever. He’s never needed anyone’s constant reminders.)

Buck hates him like he’s never hated anyone before. Bobby gives him a few odd looks for it, some disapproving, some curious. Probably because he doesn’t know this side of Buck, the one that takes what he loves and guards it jealously. None of them do, he’s worked hard to keep it that way.

So he tries to get under the guy’s skin. It’s what he does best. Ribs and needles and tries to get the guy to snap.

It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it.

But he can’t stop and maybe that should be the first clue.

*

In the back of his mind, from the day Eddie Diaz shows up, is his soulmark. It’s small, on the inside of his left wrist, and easily covered by his watch. And it says _ Edmundo_.

Some little voice in his head, the moment he heard the name Eddie, helpfully reminded him that “Eddie” could be short for many things. Edward. Eduardo. _ Edmundo_.

That same little voice has, once or twice (or maybe more), wondered whether Buck realises this whole needling routine is just aimed at getting Eddie’s attention. Buck has, more often than not, brutally shut that thought down because it’s not. It’s definitely not.

It can’t be.

None of the team are particularly forthcoming about their soulmarks. Hen’s says _ Karen_, big and bold across her collarbone, while Chim’s is smaller, more understated, but no less bold. (It also says _ Madeline_. Buck is not about to tell Chim that his soulmate is his sister. He doesn’t need that right now. He gets enough shit from each individually, just putting them in the same room together would constitute his own personal hell.)

Bobby’s soulmark is basically a state secret. No one’s ever seen it, there are only rumours. That it’s his wife’s name and hasn’t faded after her death, that it’s not his wife’s name and it never was. That someone else’s name is burrowing its way under his skin now.

But despite that, barring the exception of Bobby, they’ve always been open about _ showing _ their soulmarks. More open than Buck has ever dared to be.

That’s all beside the point really. The point is that he never paid mind to his soulmark until now (beyond the trouble it would cause at home, that is). And then Eddie Diaz just had to show up, and now it’s at the forefront of his mind. He can’t _ not _ think about it.

It’s all Eddie Diaz’s fault.

Which probably explains why, in the truck, on a call out to a man who has a _ grenade _ stuck in his leg, he asks if Eddie is short for Eduardo. It’s a reckless ploy because his brain has been full of _ what if what if what if _ for days now. He offers up Eduardo and hopes no one can hear how his voice is tinged with desperation.

Eddie’s “no” sends a swooping sensation through his stomach which he chalks up to disappointment that he still doesn’t have it any clearer.

He categorically will not think about the other option. That it’s relief.

*

So, maybe on some level, Buck hates Eddie because of the slightest possibility that he could be his soulmate. And on some other level, he is actually aware of the fact. Not that he wants to think about that awareness and it’s suddenly very important that no one else becomes aware of it too. That they think he doesn’t like Eddie just because he’s new and taking up Buck’s role.

It’s not that he thinks they’d hate him for it, for feeling that way about a guy. Or, he does know they wouldn’t, but he doesn’t _ know _ it with bone-deep certainty. His head says _ they don’t treat Hen any differently_. His heart says _ but what if_.

Which is why he has to keep it locked up tight.

*

The whole grenade debacle is going well, all things considered, until Bobby tells him he has to ride in the ambulance. With Eddie. “You’ve got to learn how to play nice. It’s one team, Buck,” is what he says. Buck gives him a tight smile in return, but he gets into the ambulance without too many complaints. It’s his job after all.

He doesn’t mean to start needling Eddie this time, really he doesn’t. But the ambulance is quiet, except for Charlie’s soft moaning, and Eddie is just so calm. He shouldn’t be calm, there’s a man with a grenade in his leg, and he shouldn’t be _ so calm_. It makes Buck restless, makes _ him _ not calm. It winds him up, gets him on edge. He rubs at his wrist, digging into the tendons below his watch strap.

“I guess you’ve seen a lot of shrapnel wounds,” he says, just to break the silence.

“My share.” _ Helpful, Diaz_.

“You ever seen a guy with a length of rebar stuck through his skull?”

“What are we measuring here, Buck?” Buck grits his teeth and is about to snap something in return when Charlie groans.

“Need to change those dressings, they’re soaking through,” Eddie tells him, like this is Buck’s first gig. He turns back to Charlie before Buck can say as much. “Hang in there, Charlie. Almost there.”

“I’m just saying,” Buck says, irritated. “Working the streets of L.A. is not exactly stress free. May not be the same kind of pressure you have in a war zone, but-”

Eddie cuts him off, suddenly. “Hold on,” he says to Charlie. “I thought you said this was a practice round.”

And that’s the point where everything goes to shit.

*

Buck doesn’t have much time to think for the next fifteen minutes. What with Eddie stopping the ambulance, the bomb squad calling the military (but seriously, isn’t this supposed to be something _ they _handle?), and Eddie volunteering to remove the grenade cap, he’s only able to focus on what’s happening right in that moment. It’s only later that he realises just how well he and Eddie worked together through it all.

And when Eddie grins at him, wide and eager, both of them still high on the adrenaline of a successful job, Buck feels his heart leap in his chest.

“You’re badass under pressure, brother,” Eddie tells him.

“Me?”

“Hell yeah. You can have my back any day.” Buck’s pretty sure his brain shorts out at this point, but he’s definitely going to chalk that one up to the adrenaline. Never mind the smiling brown eyes glinting in the night opposite him.

“Yeah,” he says, breathless. “Or, you know, you could... you could have mine.” _ Smooth_.

“Deal,” Eddie says, with another wide grin.

Buck’s so screwed.

*

That it takes Maddie a couple of nights before she elects to up and leave is the most surprising thing about coming home to her suitcase, Buck decides. He was really just waiting for the other shoe to drop if he’s honest. There was always going to be a day he came home to find her leaving, or even gone. So he musters up something approaching a smile despite the coil of worry curling around his heart.

“Leaving already?” Maddie’s smile is equally strained.

“Road ahead awaits.” Buck sighs. He sits down next to her. There’s silence between them for a bit. Buck idly kneads his thumb into his wrist. Something about the way Maddie is filled with nervous energy makes him ask the question that’s been on his mind these past few days.

“I’m more concerned with the road behind you. Maddie, what really happened with Doug? Why are you running away from him?”

Maddie protests, like he knew she would, but if being a younger brother has taught him anything, it’s how to press his sister to get the actual answer. It doesn’t take much, it never has.

As it comes spilling out, Buck has to clench his hands and force himself to stay sat down. He wants to pace, he wants to punch something, to_ hurt _ something. Some _ one_. He wants to fly out to Pennsylvania and burn everything Doug loves to the ground. Instead he grasps Maddie’s hand and squeezes tight, like that might somehow keep her from leaving him again.

“You can start over,” he says. “I can help you. I can help you get a great nursing job at one of the hospitals.”

“No,” Maddie shakes her head. “I really miss helping people, but I can’t do that job every day, looking over my shoulder, wondering who’s walking in the front door.”

Which is when the operator job occurs to Buck. It’s perfect. It keeps Maddie with him, and away from Doug. Even Maddie seems excited about it, once Buck has explained everything. The undercurrent of panic that had been running through Buck ever since he entered the flat slowly seeps away. Maddie’s staying.

They’ll be fine.

*

The peace lasts for about two days before an earthquake hits. Because of course it does. That feels like all Buck’s life is about these days. Settling into some kind of contentment before being hit by some great upheaval. Quite literally in this case.

They’re in the truck when he finds out about Eddie’s son, when Eddie shows him a photo of Christopher smiling widely at the camera. Eddie has someone to get back to. Buck has someone to get back to now as well. He’s never been nervous about a job before, but now he is. He exhales and rubs his wrist.

When they arrive at the hotel, there’s nothing to do but buckle down and get to it. He sets aside his worry for Maddie, and focuses instead on what he can do. “One task at a time,” is what Bobby said, so one task at a time is what Buck does.

It takes hours, and at the end of the day, he’s as tired as he’s ever been. All he really wants to do is collapse on a sofa at the station and just sleep for twelve hours. But Eddie’s been anxious about Christopher since they left the hotel, so Buck offers to drive him over.

“It’s hardly a detour,” he says, when Eddie tries to decline. “C’mon.”

The drive is silent, both of them too exhausted to really talk. And it’s not like either of them has anything to tell the other about their day - they both lived through it after all. But it’s a comfortable sort of silence. Unlike that day in the ambulance, Buck doesn’t feel the need to fill it in. Nothing about Eddie drives him to distraction now and Buck wonders idly when that happened, how it happened so quickly. With the same ease that Eddie slipped into the team, he’s now started slipping into Buck’s life.

“Here,” Eddie points, breaking Buck’s train of thought. Buck pulls up outside a tower block, and Eddie jumps out the car, not even looking back as he catches sight of a boy who must be Christopher. Feeling a little like he’s trespassing on something, Buck watches him drop to his knees and pull the boy into a tight hug. Something catches in his chest at the sight, and he has to look away as tears sting his eyes.

_ It’s the exhaustion_, he tells himself. _ That must be it_.

*

Back at Abby’s flat, he crashes. He’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, out like a light until his alarm goes off early the next morning. He comes to slowly, cataloguing the little aches and pains he’s accumulated in the past day. Maddie must have got back some time after he had dropped off, because he can hear her pottering about in the kitchen. He lets himself have a few moments lying there before, groaning, he drags himself out of bed and into the kitchen.

Maddie is stood at the sink, washing out a mug, while the coffee machine hisses away in the corner. She looks tired, exhaustion in the curve of her shoulders.

“Hey, Mads,” he croaks. His throat is sore from all the brick dust and shouting of the previous day. She spins around, seemingly not having heard him enter, and a second later, she’s wrapping her arms around him. Every part of his body protests at the tightness of her grip, but he revels in it. Because a couple of times the previous day, when the aftershocks were hitting, he thought he might not make it back to this.

“I was so worried,” she mumbles into his chest. “Evan…”

“I know, Mads,” he whispers into her hair. “I know.”

They stand there a while longer - Buck doesn’t know how long - but eventually Maddie pulls away. She wipes her eyes and Buck pretends he’s not about to do the same. Then she lets out a deep breath and gives him a wobbly smile.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” Buck’s about to reply when he recognises the sign of her teasing in her eyes. “You being taller than me, that is,” she finishes with a smirk.

“Okay,” Buck says with a startled laugh. “Fuck you, I’ve been taller than you since I was like fifteen.”

“More like eighteen, but okay.”

Buck flips her the bird and she laughs, bright and loud. He wants to spend every morning like this.

*

When Buck reaches the firehouse for his shift later that day, Eddie’s already there, sat on a sofa in the dining area. Buck grabs another coffee and makes his way over. “How’s Christopher?” he asks as he sits down.

“He’s fine,” Eddie says. “I think he was more excited about having experienced an earthquake for the first time than worried. At least by the end.”

“I told you a school was the safest place for him to be.”

“You also said that about a high rise, Buck, and look what happened,” Eddie responds, dryly, a smile quirking his lips.

“Ha,” Buck says. “But I was right about the school, wasn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, softly. “You were. Thanks.” Their eyes catch and Buck can’t look away all of a sudden. His throat is dry and he swallows reflexively. Eddie’s eyes are a deep brown, full of some kind of emotion that Buck can’t parse. With an effort, he coughs and pulls his eyes away, taking a gulp of his coffee to try settle his racing heart.

“So,” he says, searching desperately for some neutral topic. “How are you finding L.A.? You moved from Texas, Bobby said. I mean, barring the earthquake obviously.” Eddie gives him an odd look, like he knows what Buck is doing (which would be impressive because _ Buck _ doesn’t even know what he’s doing right now). But he lets him get away with it.

“I never would have if I’d known what the traffic was going to be like!” he jokes. “I can’t believe it took me so long to get in this morning, _ and _ I left with about an hour to spare.” Buck’s laugh comes out with a hint more relief than he would like.

“You said it, brother. You don’t know bad traffic until you’ve experienced L.A. bad traffic.”

“One day you’ll make it out of L.A. and the clear roads will freak you out so much you won’t know what to do,” Eddie tells him. Buck’s hands clench involuntarily around his coffee cup and he takes another gulp. He doesn’t correct Eddie’s assumption.

“Does Christopher like it here?” he asks instead. He thought the subject change was smooth, but the look Eddie slips him informs him that it hadn’t escaped his attention again. Though, again, he lets it slide.

“Yeah, I think so,” Eddie replies. “He’s enjoying school at least. I guess that’s all I can hope for right now.” Buck makes a noise of agreement.

“More than I did at his age,” he remarks.

It looks for a second like Eddie’s about to ask him something, that some question is on the tip of his tongue, but they’re interrupted by Chim arriving. “Hey, Buckaroo, Eddie,” he says. “What’s cookin’?” Buck rolls his eyes.

“Chim, you saying that will never be as cool as you think it is,” he ribs.

“Ouch,” Chim says, pretending to flinch away. “That’s cold, Buckaroo. Real cold.”

“Sometimes, Chim, you have to be cold to be kind,” Buck tells him. He stands up from the sofa and goes to clean up his mug.

“It’s _ cruel _ to be kind, Buckaroo, not cold,” Chim says from behind him. Buck looks back over his shoulder with a grin.

“I’m adapting.”

*

Buck’s halfway home from a shift when Eddie calls him. “I hate to have to ask this,” Eddie says. “But my car just broke down. You don’t think you’d be able to pick me up, do you?”

“Of course,” Buck says immediately. “Just let me know where you are.” He listens as Eddie rattles off an address and then takes a couple of left turns to get himself going in the right direction. “I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, man,” Eddie says.

He sounds so tiredly relieved that Buck’s voice softens reflexively as he says, “Any time.”

*

Eddie’s sat on the curb when Buck pulls up. “Hey,” he says quietly as he climbs into the passenger seat. “Thanks for this.”

“You know I wasn’t about to leave you stranded,” Buck tells him. They settle into a comfortable silence, streetlamps lighting up the car then fading out in a soothing rhythm as Buck drives through the streets.

Every now and then, Buck shoots a glance over at Eddie, watching the light play across his face. One time, Eddie almost catches him, but Buck looks away quickly, concentrating fiercely on the road and not how inviting Eddie looks.

_ Inviting? _ he thinks to himself. _ Inviting what? _

Eddie breaks the silence when they’re almost at his house. “That’s all I needed,” he sighs wearily.

“What happened?” Buck asks.

“No clue,” Eddie shrugs. “Garage said they’d take it to have a look at it, and call me back in a few days.” He sighs again. “Only I really needed to run errands tomorrow while we have a day off, and that’s put paid to that.”

“Hey, I can always give you a lift, if you need,” Buck suggests. “I mean, I have errands to run tomorrow as well, so…” He trails off, because that’s a lie. He doesn’t really have anything to do, but he wouldn’t mind spending time with Eddie.

“I can’t ask that of you,” Eddie starts.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Buck interrupts. “What else would friends do?” In the dark of the car, lit only momentarily by streetlamps, the weight of Eddie’s gaze on him seems to mean something more. He feels a sensation like a butterfly landing on his skin and shivers.

“Okay.” Eddie says it so quietly that Buck almost misses it. “Thank you.”

*

Buck knocks on Eddie’s door the next morning and, when Eddie tries to tell him again he doesn’t have to do this, he waves him off.

“You don’t have a car, I do, and we both need to run errands,” he says. “It makes sense to share a lift.” He doesn’t mention how his ‘errands’ are only the ones he could come up with frantically fueled by coffee that morning.

So he’s happy to let Eddie take the lead in directing him places. He has a whole list written for where he needs to be. First, a department store, to buy some more bedsheets (“I, uh, tore a set the other day.” “_Tore _ them?” “Putting them on the bed, Buck! It’s not what you’re thinking!”), then to get a birthday card for his youngest sister (“She’s twenty-seven, practically a baby.” “Hey, _ I’m _ twenty-seven.”), and finally, a grocery store, where Eddie has a second list of items to pick up.

“You weren’t kidding about the errands, were you?” Buck jokes. Eddie looks about to say something again, but Buck cuts him off. “I already said I didn’t mind doing this.” Eddie’s face relaxes and he laughs.

“Sorry, guess I’m still just used to errands involving a fair few more arguments than this,” he says, and Buck wonders if he can detect a sour note in his voice, or if it’s just his imagination. He frowns slightly. He wants to ask, but Eddie’s turning away and heading into the shop, and the set of his shoulders, coupled with a burning feeling in the pit of Buck’s stomach, tells him it wouldn’t be a good idea.

So he shelves his curiosity and follows Eddie inside.

“We could split the list, get it done quicker,” he suggests.

“What about your errands?” Eddie asks and the look he flicks at Buck says he knows exactly what Buck’s doing, that he’s known all the while.

“Uh, I can pick up what I need at the same time,” Buck hedges. “It’s not any trouble.”

Eddie gives him a measuring look. “Okay,” he says eventually. “It’ll save time. Can you grab me some pasta, some sliced bread, and some milk? Full fat.”

“Yes, sir,” Buck says, saluting cheekily, and Eddie laughs.

As Buck wanders around the shop, picking up groceries for Eddie and placing the odd one in his own basket in pretence of having had his own errands to run, he realises that he’s actually enjoying himself. It’s not that he actively _ doesn’t _ enjoy himself doing the grocery shopping usually. It’s more that he’s enjoying spending time with Eddie.

If you’d told him little over a week ago that he would become friends with the new recruit, the one he hated on sight, he would have laughed in your face. But something about doing a food shop of all things with Eddie just feels right.

Buck rolls his eyes at himself at that thought. “It’s just the groceries,” he mutters to himself, gaining him a slightly strange look from an old lady in the aisle.

He gives her a smile, picks the nearest item on the shelf, and hurries away.

“You done?” he asks Eddie when he finds him again near the checkouts.

“Yeah, just about,” Eddie says. He catches sight of what’s in Buck’s hand. “You, uh, you really need that?” Buck looks down at what he’s holding.

“There was an old lady,” he starts and then stops. He has no idea how to continue that sentence without telling Eddie what had really been on his mind. Eddie laughs and his shoulders loosen. Buck hadn’t even realised how tense he had been before now.

“That’s a story I have to hear,” Eddie says. “Come on, you. I’ve got only one more errand to run after this.”

The tone of Eddie’s voice, the _ fondness _ of it, stuns Buck breathless for a moment. It takes him a second to get his feet moving again and to follow Eddie to the checkout.

Which is how he accidentally buys himself a box of flea powder.

*

It’s a testament to just how weird things can get in L.A. that a call-out to someone with their head stuck in a tailpipe barely registers on Buck’s radar. It’s not the strangest incident they’ve had to deal with - it probably doesn’t even make the top ten. And when one of the women asks for his phone number, he shrugs her off with an “I have a girlfriend.” Which is when he realises that he hasn’t really thought about Abby since Eddie joined the team. When he told Bobby earlier about finding out she was in Morocco through Instagram, that was the first time in a while. He’s still living in her flat, but he isn’t still thinking about her.

He doesn’t quite know how to deal with that.

Deep down, he knows Chim is probably right to say that he and Abby are broken up. She’s 6000 miles away from him, doing her ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ thing and finding herself. He’s stuck right where he’s always been. Only in a nicer flat.

At the edge of his hearing, Eddie says “I have a son,” and his voice jolts Buck back into reality and to the job at hand. It’s hard not to eavesdrop on Eddie’s conversation though, particularly when he’s right next to him and some part of Buck is curious as to Eddie’s answer. “That’s great,” the woman replies. “So do I.”

But Jennifer takes that moment to inform them that she’s about to vomit, and all focus is back on the tailpipe, Eddie’s words forgotten. “Alright, Jennifer,” Hen says. “Keep your head completely still. You’re gonna hear a lot of noise, but everything is fine.”

Five minutes later, they’re all done. Hen hands the sawed-off tailpipe to the car owner and says, “Condolences on Betty.” Buck tries not to laugh at the look on the guy’s face. He and Eddie follow behind the others.

Their shoulders bump together with every step and, each time, Buck feels a jolt of electricity rocket through him. His wrist itches underneath his watch and he scratches it, feeling the slight raising of his skin where his soulmark lies.

A burn of curiosity is making its way over his skin. The women were hot - even if Buck turned them down with an excuse about Abby, he can admit that much. But Eddie not dating because of Christopher seems somehow false.

It’s not his place to ask, he knows. He hasn’t known Eddie long enough for that to be a comfortable topic. So he tries to bite his tongue. Really he does. But maybe not hard enough and, once again when it comes to Eddie, he ends up blurting out what’s on his mind.

“Hey, so is your son really the reason you don’t date?” he asks, and then curses himself internally.

Eddie shrugs. “That, and they weren’t my type.”

Buck badly wants to ask Eddie what his type is, but this time he won’t succumb to that curiosity. He can already tell that Eddie’s tensed up at his question. “Not mine either,” he says instead. “Not anymore. But I’m talking in general.”

“It’s complicated when you have a kid. And besides, what’s the point in dating when somewhere out there is a person you’re _ destined _ to be with.” The way he says ‘destined’ is bitter, and a matching sourness develops in Buck’s stomach.

“What, you’re not gonna date because of your son and your soulmate? Come on, that’s a weak excuse.”

“You live in your invisible girlfriend’s house, and you’re telling me about weak excuses.”

That stings more than Buck expects it to and he stops walking. He wants to say something - he doesn’t know what - but Eddie’s phone is ringing, and he’s clearly just shut the conversation down. Well, despite what Chim says, Buck can take a hint. Soulmates and dating are off-limits for Eddie Diaz.

*

They’re sat at the table waiting for Bobby to finish cooking when Chim risks bringing up the subject of soulmates. Buck always knew it would happen some day. A lack of forthcoming about the topic was only going to last as long as someone wasn’t _ asking _ about it, and clearly his luck has run out on that front. It’s not that he isn’t curious about everyone else’s soulmarks, but it’s the offering up of information about his own in return that gets him. He’s no closer to knowing who _ Edmundo _ is (and whether it’s Eddie), and he’s not about to expose his soulmark here and now in case it is. Besides, his father always told him soulmarks were private things, only to be shared with the one whose name it was (and not even that if you were… unlucky with your soulmate. ‘Unlucky’ covered a multitude of sins for Buck’s father).

“I think I’ve realised why Tatiana and I never worked out,” Chim announces as he sits down next to Eddie.

“Oh?” Bobby makes an inquisitive noise that Buck is half-sure is out of politeness only. Unfortunately it only has the effect of encouraging Chim.

“It’s not because she was an absolute raging bitch?” Hen asks.

“No,” Chim protests. “We weren’t soulmates. That’s why it didn’t work out.”

“Oh, here we go,” Hen sighs.

“No, no, hear me out,” Chim says. “You and Karen, you worked out even after that thing with Eva” - he ignores Hen’s frantic waving at him to be _ quiet _ \- “because Karen was your soulmate and Eva wasn’t. Me and Tatiana? We were never really gonna make it because neither of us had the other’s name.”

“And she was a raging bitch,” Hen adds.

“Okay, fine,” Chim gives in. “She was also a raging bitch.”

“And me and Karen worked things out because we _ love _ each other, not because we’re soulmates.”

“But you’re also soulmates.”

“Yes, we’re also soulmates. But that’s no guarantee for success in a relationship, Chimney.”

“It can’t hurt, can it?” Hen rolls her eyes.

“There is no arguing with you.”

“Because I’m right,” Chim asserts. Hen looks about to say something cutting in reply, but Chim turns quickly to Eddie. “Hey, Eddie, back me up here.” Buck’s heart rate ratchets up a notch. Given the speed with which Eddie shut down his questions about dating the previous day, Buck doesn’t see how this is turning out well.

“Help you out?” Eddie asks, as if he’s not been paying attention to the conversation.

“Yeah, surely you agree that being soulmates is all you need.”

“I think soulmates are a load of shit,” Eddie says bluntly. Chim is momentarily stunned, but he rallies. Meanwhile, Buck feels as though he’s been punched hard in the gut. He looks down at his hands on the table to avoid facing Eddie. His fingers creep under his watch strap to grip at his wrist.

“No, no, no, Eddie, how can you think that?” Chim cries. “Where’s the _ romance_?” Eddie shrugs.

“There’s nothing particularly romantic about trying to force a relationship with someone just because you think you’re destined to be together or some bullshit. Actually, the very fact of someone apparently being my soulmate would send me running in the opposite direction.”

There’s dead silence at this.

“Well,” Hen says finally. “That was cheerful. What do you think, Buck? Anything to add?” Buck starts.

“I-” he says, and then is unable to continue. The expectant looks they’re giving him, combined with the sick feeling building in his stomach leaves him bereft of words.

He’s unusually grateful when the alarm goes off at that moment.

Bobby turns off his cooking and sighs in exasperation. “Oh come on!” Chim complains. Buck hops out of his chair and hurries to the truck, trying not to feel as though he’s just dodged a bullet.

He has to set this aside, he decides later. He doesn’t even know for sure whether Eddie is his soulmate, so his views on the whole thing are not Buck’s problem. Besides, Buck has Abby, doesn’t he?

*

Eddie’s frustration is a tangible thing. It’s not that he’s expressive about it, but for Buck it feels like a loose tooth that he can’t help poking at. Apparently it’s only tangible to Buck though, because Chim and Hen both act as though nothing is out of the ordinary.

Their shift is winding to a close when Buck makes his move. Eddie’s sat at the table, worrying at the inside of his cheek while he flips through some paperwork. “Hey,” Buck says, coming to sit beside him. “You alright?” Eddie gives him a strange look and for a second, Buck thinks he might have overstepped.

“Uh, it’s just- paperwork for Chris, grants and stuff,” Eddie says tentatively, as if he wasn’t really expecting anyone to ask. “It’s-” he cuts himself off and lets out a deep breath. “There’s just so many parts to them, and if I apply for one grant, I can’t apply for another. It’s just-” he gestures frustratedly, “so complicated and I don’t understand _ why_.” He sighs and gives Buck a rueful grin. “You probably didn’t expect to be offloaded on like that, sorry.”

“No, no,” Buck hastily reassures him. “I asked, after all. I, uh, wish I could help more.”

“Being able to get it off my chest’s helped,” Eddie says. “Really.”

“Well then,” Buck grins at him. “Any time you need to get something off your chest, I’m your guy.”

*

The idea hits him as he’s driving home from work later. He knows Eddie is having trouble with finding the best help for Christopher, Maddie said the only people who know how to navigate the bureaucracy are the people who work in it, so who better to hook Eddie up with than Carla. It’s what any good friend would do.

He calls Carla when he gets home. He hasn’t spoken to her in a bit, probably not for a couple of weeks. She’s so inextricably connected to Abby for him that he struggles not to think of that part of his life when she’s around. He loves her still, just as he does Abby, but he knows that you can love someone and still be hurt by them. He thinks that maybe Carla feels a little the same way when it comes to him.

But she’ll always pick up his calls and he’ll always answer hers.

“Buckaroo!” she says. “How’re you doing, honey? It’s good to hear your voice.” Buck laughs.

“I’m doing good, Carla. How are you?”

“I’m good, I’m good, but I know you didn’t just call to ask me how I was.”

“Hey, I could just be checking up on you!” Buck protests.

“And are you?”

“Well, okay, maybe I also had a favour to ask…” Carla laughs.

“I love you, honey, but I can always tell when you’re calling with a question, and don’t you go forgetting it. Now, what did you want to ask?”

“So, I have this friend…” Buck starts, before Carla interrupts.

“Oh, a _ friend_, huh.”

“I still have a _ girlfriend_, Carla!” Something in Carla’s resulting silence spurs Buck to hurry on. “Anyway, he has a son with CP and needs some help getting the best aid for him. I thought you might be able to lend a hand.”

“Anything for you or a friend of yours, hon,” Carla says.

“Thanks, Carla. Do you think you could come by sometime this evening?”

“Oh, Lord, yes, anything to get me out the house right now. I’m being driven crazy right now.”

“College apps going badly?”

“That and Howard’s renovations. It is all happening at the moment. Let me tell you, I’ll be glad for a bit of peace and quiet.”

“Well, I’ve got a lot of that round here to spare,” he says dryly.

“You sure you’re okay, Buckaroo?” Carla asks.

“Absolutely,” Buck says with a cheer that doesn’t quite ring true even for him. “Hey, did I tell you my sister’s around? You’ll have to meet her sometime, you’d like her.” Carla lets him change the subject without protest and Buck has never been more thankful for her.

*

“Thought you said we were helping your sister move,” Eddie says as he walks into the flat that evening. “Doesn’t look like she’s packed anything.”

“Oh, this stuff is Abby’s,” Buck says, with what he thinks sounds like excellent nonchalance. “I lied about the whole moving thing. I mean, my sister is moving, it’s just she doesn’t really have that much stuff.”

“What’s going on, Buck?” Eddie asks warily.

“I asked you here cause there’s someone I want you to meet.”

“You didn’t set me up, did you?” Buck rolls his eyes.

“No, just-just trust me. This woman is exactly what you need.” Eddie still looks sceptical, but there’s a knock at the door just at that moment, so he can’t say anything more.

“Buckaroo!” Carla says when he opens the door, a wide smile on her face.

“Carla,” he replies, just as wide a grin on his. She tugs him into a tight hug and he lets her.

“Baby, ah, goodness I missed your face,” she says, pulling back. Buck laughs.

“Oh, I missed you too. Come on in.” He turns to face Eddie. “Uh, Eddie, this is my friend Carla.”

“Nice to meet you, Eddie,” Carla says.

“Likewise.”

“Carla is L.A.’s finest home health care aid. She has years of experience navigating giant bureaucracies, and I thought she could help you figure out how to get Christopher what he needs.”

“I’m red tape’s worst nightmare,” Carla jokes.

The way Eddie looks at him then makes his heart leap in his chest, makes him feel like he’s being warmed by the sun. _ It’s just satisfaction at being able to help his friend_, he tells himself as Carla leads him away. _ Nothing more_.

*

When Eddie and Carla have left, and Buck’s alone in Abby’s empty flat, all he can do is think. He’d told Bobby earlier that he still loved Abby, that he wanted her to be happy. And that was still true and always would be. But the other thing he’d said, about how long he would have to wait before he got to be happy too? That was new.

Okay, the feeling wasn’t necessarily so. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty because he can now look back and see where that feeling was starting to creep in. All the times that Chim said he’d broken up with Abby, when Maddie told him she found it weird to be in a total stranger’s flat. Deep down, he knew they were right, that he was stuck, in stasis, waiting for an event that likely would never happen. And if he didn’t think about it, he didn’t have to deal with it.

But now, he’s not sure he can continue in the same way. The question of how long would he have to wait does have an answer.

No longer than this.

*

When Maddie said that she wanted to move out of Abby’s flat, Buck hadn’t realised that she’d meant she had another flat already lined up. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised. His sister was always the more organised of the two of them. Buck is a flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy, whereas Maddie will have come up with plans B-Z before she even starts on plan A. Of course she was never going to move out before she had somewhere else to go.

So, yeah, it stings, feels like her just leaving him again, but she’ll still be in the same city. She’ll still be with him. And he would do anything for her to help her get past Doug. If this is what she needs, it’s what he’ll do.

That doesn’t mean he won’t rope Eddie and Chim into helping him do all the heavy lifting.

Of course, he completely forgets about the whole soulmate situation. It’s not until Chim shows up, neat black ‘e’ in his sister’s handwriting just visible under his sleeve, that he remembers. Maddie’s, he knows, says _ Howard_, which is hard enough to match to Chim. But Chim’s says _ Madeline_. And it would be fair enough to draw the conclusion that that’s Maddie’s full name.

It’s not that he begrudges them being soulmates. Really he doesn’t. He won’t say anything because that’s for them to find out and that’s okay. There’s not even a drop of resentment in him about this situation. Not one tiny bit.

Okay, there’s a miniscule bit. And it’s not resentment so much as maybe jealousy. That some people have it so easy finding their soulmates.

_ That’s not fair_, he chides himself. _ You know what Maddie’s been through_.

He rubs at his wrist and sighs.

“Hey, Buckaroo,” Chim calls suddenly. “This situation overload your brain or something?” Buck snaps out of his thoughts.

“Ha,” he says. “Very funny.”

“I thought so,” Chim says. “Get your ass over here and give us a hand already.”

*

“He is so cute,” Maddie says to him later, when everything’s moved in and Eddie and Chim are in the kitchen. Buck’s hardly paying attention.

“Yeah, he gets that a lot,” he replies. “You should see his kid, though.”

“Wait, Chimney has a kid?” Maddie asks, confused. Now Buck’s confused too.

“No, I- I thought- you meant _ Chimney_?” he stutters. The look Maddie gives him says that they’re definitely going to discuss this later, so he thanks whatever deity when Chim and Eddie come back into the room, carrying beer and pizza.

*

“I know I joked about your boy crush,” Maddie starts, once Eddie and Chim have left. She and Buck are doing the washing up in the kitchen, her washing, Buck drying.

“Woah, woah,” Buck tries to head her off at the pass. “Boy crush? What boy crush?” The look she levels at him is so wholly unimpressed Buck has to look away.

“Evan Buckley, do not give me any of that shit,” she says, waving a soapy knife at him. “I know the way you look at him. I’ve seen that look before.” Buck huffs a laugh. “Remember Jake, from seventh grade? That’s the look.” Maddie’s not looking at him so she doesn’t see the way he tenses up.

Of course he remembers Jake. But more than that, he remembers his father’s _ reaction _ to Jake. No, not even _ Jake_. The _ idea _ of Jake.

He remembers chatting away to Maddie about Jake as they made dinner. It was Maddie’s final year of high school, the year before she moved out for good. He, aged eleven, hadn’t yet learned when not to speak about such things. But they’d been alone in the house.

He’s since forgotten the exact nature of that conversation. Just that he was filled with an excitedness about everything. Perhaps Jake had invited him somewhere, perhaps that was it. But either way, Maddie had been listening to him indulgently while chopping up potatoes. And neither of them had heard the front door.

His father had never been physically violent, and he wasn’t then either. But, as Buck came to learn, there are different types of violence, and the lack of a physical violence did not mean a lack of violence altogether. He still remembers the disgust on his father’s face, and that same disgust in his voice, painting out slurs.

He didn’t speak to Buck for weeks after that, didn’t even bother to act like that wasn’t what he was doing.

So Buck learnt to hide that look and overcompensate. And to do that so well that it became second nature. So much so that it’s something he doesn’t even notice he’s doing anymore.

But apparently all it takes is Maddie bringing up Jake and he feels like he’s eleven all over again, filled with a sordid kind of guilt for he-doesn’t-know-what.

“Evan,” Maddie says softly. “Look at me.” It takes Buck a moment to realise that he’s staring at the floor, fingers pressed into his wrist. He looks up and Maddie’s hands, her still wet and soapy hands, come up to cup his face. She regards him for a moment, biting her lip. He doesn’t know what she sees in his face, but whatever it is, it makes her pull him down into a hug, murmuring, “Come here.”

Buck’s breath hitches, and he buries his face in Maddie’s neck, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Maddie says fiercely. “Absolutely nothing.”

*

One thing Buck’s always struggled to do is hold his tongue. Jake is a case in point. As is the whole conversation he had with Eddie about dating. Both times, Buck’s inability to know when not to talk has caused him problems.

So, in retrospect, Buck should definitely learn to stop running his mouth off, maybe think before he speaks. But it’s not his fault that everyone thinks he’s flirting when he’s actually just trying to be nice. And really he was just trying to be nice this time. Okay, yes, Taylor Kelly is hot and he was more than a little surprised to find out that’s who they’d rescued and maybe there was a little flirting in there. Just a small bit. More like a kind of knee-jerk reaction, though. He meets someone hot, he flirts.

He did the same with Eddie once he’d got over hating him.

So, really, he’s not sure what the big deal is. He wasn’t _ flirting _ flirting.

Surely ‘it’s weird to hear that voice come out of a face’ gave them a clue. Buck’s usually smoother than that. This time, he was distracted. Because he could feel Eddie’s eyes burning into him and a sensation like an insect crawling across his skin. When he’d glanced in that direction, Eddie had looked away, but Buck had still felt the residual effects. So, he’d said something about beating traffic in the city, and given a bashful smile, before getting out of there.

Alright, so maybe he can see why he’s getting the piss taken out of him. If he’d actually have been flirting, that would have counted as abysmal. But the truth? That he’s been too busy thinking about his _ coworker _ to actually flirt?

Yeah, that one’s never seeing the light of day.

*

When Taylor Kelly shows up at the station the next day, Buck figures it’s a sign that the universe hates him. He thought he could get away with acting as though the previous day was an aberration, a blip. He could forget about the whole Taylor Kelly thing. But it’s like, she shows up, and he suddenly feels like he has to act exactly how everyone expects him to. Call it a protective mechanism, something he learnt to do in childhood, whatever. Buck wishes it wasn’t so ingrained.

Because every time he thinks he’s getting out of those old patterns, it feels like something throws him right back in.

A part of him, an old Buck 1.0 part, points out that Taylor’s hot and there’d be no harm in them having some fun together. But then he remembers Abby, and feels a flush of guilt.

“Uh, Taylor Kelly?” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“You can just call me Taylor,” she replies with a smile. “Uh, how was your drive in? Did you miss me?”

“My morning definitely wasn’t the same without you,” he jokes. Taylor’s about to say something in return when Eddie calls over to ask how she is.

“Any side effects after the crash?” he says, coming to stand by them. He’s been working out so his chest is visibly rising and falling with exertion. Buck has to drag his eyes away before his staring becomes too obvious.

“I’m great,” Taylor says, a small smile on her face. “Thanks to all of you, which is why I’m here. You guys were so amazing. I want to do a story on this firehouse and on the heroes who work here.”

Buck can tell that Eddie’s as less-than-enamoured by the idea as he is. He’s certain that Bobby won’t be too impressed either. But Taylor seems excited about it, and when Bobby comes back saying that the Chief’s okayed it, Buck supposes he’s going to have to grit his teeth and bear it.

*

Buck’s only been interviewed for television once before. It was after the rollercoaster broke down, when Buck first lost someone. He hadn’t liked it then - it had been uncomfortable having the attention on him, when two people had just died. He isn’t sure if he’ll like it any more this time around, but he doesn’t really have a choice about it.

So he pastes on a smile and when the inevitable question of ‘how did you get into firefighting’ comes, he lies through his teeth.

“Well, to be honest, I, um, I just kind of fell into it,” he says, rueful grin and a shrug in place.

“Fell into it, huh?” Taylor asks curiously. “How exactly can you fall into something like this?”

“You’d be surprised,” Buck says. “Really, I was just looking for some work to do, and I just so happened to run into an LAFD recruiter that day.”

“What a coincidence,” Taylor says, in a tone that implies she doesn’t really believe in coincidences, that she knows Buck isn’t telling the whole truth.

Buck’s fairly sure no one would want to hear the real truth, that when he arrived in L.A., he opened a job listing, closed his eyes and picked one. The coincidence really is that he fit the job so well. But he doesn’t particularly want to answer the questions that that story would raise. He hasn’t even told Maddie how he came to be in L.A., he’s definitely not going to be telling a relative stranger.

So he smiles guilelessly and says, “Yeah, the happiest coincidence of my life.”

*

Buck wouldn’t have said he particularly believed in ghosts as a kid. He’d believed in magic and fantasy worlds for the escape it gave him, but ghosts? Not really. But there have been so many strange things happening during this shift he thinks there has to be only one explanation for it.

And when Maddie tells him about Ian’s 911 call from her end? Well, all that does is solidify his belief that there’s something paranormal going on. Maddie is clearly less than convinced.

“Okay, so how do you explain that it was the exact same call?” he asks her.

“I said it sounded like the same call. A lot of these calls sound the same.”

“Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, but we both know a ghost called 911.”

“Okay,” she says, clearly having given up on arguing this point with him. “You know, I keep thinking about the wedding ring. I mean, you saw it, right? How many nights someone was just waiting for news. I heard somewhere a person is declared legally dead after they’ve been gone for seven years.”

“Yeah. I think you have to sign, like, a petition or something.” Buck takes a sip of his beer.

“God, that is so awful,” Maddie says. “Having to admit to the world that you’ve lost hope.”

“Well, seven years is a long time,” Buck shrugs “Probably lost hope way before that.”

“No one can wait forever.”

“Yeah. Hope is a tricky thing.” All of a sudden, Buck finds himself thinking of Abby. About waiting for her, not knowing when, or even if, she’ll ever come home. He knows Maddie has sensed the shift in the conversation. Maybe she’s been waiting to bring it up.

“Yeah, it keeps you going for a while, but at some point, if what you’re hoping for is never gonna happen then it’s just holding you back from your life,” she says gently.

“But it’s hard to know, though, right?” Buck asks, a sliver of desperation in his tone. “If you’re hanging on too long or if you’re giving up too soon.”

“I think you do know,” Maddie tells him. “It just may take you some time to admit it to yourself.” Buck sighs and scrubs at his face.

He thinks, deep down, that he should have perhaps expected this. After all, Abby isn’t his soulmate, and neither was he hers. But what they had, they just clicked, and Buck isn’t sure if he’ll ever feel that happy with someone again. Suddenly, fiercely, he doesn’t want to let her go. He wants to keep waiting and waiting for her. But he knows that that wouldn’t be good for either of them.

*

“So, _ Edmundo_, huh,” Hen says one day as they’re eating, halfway through a 24-hour shift. Buck jumps and looks up, expecting her to be looking at him, but instead she’s looking at Eddie. Suddenly Buck can’t breathe properly, and his hands are starting to shake. There are plenty of Edmundos, he tells himself desperately. That doesn’t mean this Eddie, _ his _ Eddie, is the right one. He takes a gulp of water and almost immediately starts coughing when it goes down the wrong way. It causes a distraction from the conversation that’s about to start, sure, but it lands the attention squarely on him instead.

“Buck, you okay?” Eddie asks, placing a hand on his back.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Buck croaks, then breaks into another coughing fit. Eddie’s hand is a burning brand just below his right shoulder blade. Every atom of Buck’s body is screaming at him to lean into it, and very carefully, Buck refuses to. Instead, against his every instinct, he pulls away, subtly enough, but putting space between them. “Just went down the wrong way,” he says when he stops coughing next. “You were saying, Hen?”

_ Why did you just do that? _ he asks himself. _ Are you some kind of masochist or what? _

“Oh, nothing important,” Hen says, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Just that I found out our Eddie here has been holding out on us. Haven’t you, _ Edmundo _?”

The relief in Eddie’s face when the sirens go off almost exceeds the relief spreading through Buck’s chest.

*

It’s towards the end of that shift that Eddie brings up his ex-wife. It’s voluntarily as well, which is enough to make Buck’s heart sink. In all the time he’s known Eddie - which is, admittedly, not that long an acquaintance - he’s never known him to willingly talk about his ex or dating. So this? This is a rather big departure.

But this is clearly weighing on Eddie. He’s been fidgeting all shift, focused enough when there’s a job to take his mind off things, but when there’s nothing to do but sit and wait, Buck’s almost been tempted to take him for a walk to run off the excess energy.

So when Eddie blurts out, “Shannon’s back,” Buck knows all he can do is sit and listen while his heart plummets. Eddie scrubs his hands over his face and sighs.

“Back?” Buck prompts him.

“I needed her to interview at Chris’s new school,” Eddie explains. “And now she wants back in his life. She says she made a mistake.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Buck says.

“I don’t know,” Eddie sighs. “I just… I want to believe her, for Chris’s sake, but I can’t.” He leans back into the sofa and closes his eyes. Buck bites his lip, pausing before what he’s about to say.

“I know that I would have given anything for my mom to come back when I was Christopher’s age.” He stands up and claps a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I also know you’ll do what’s best for him. Whatever that may be.”

Eddie looks up at him, resting his hand over Buck’s. “Thanks, man,” he says, the relief evident in his voice. Buck swallows against his suddenly dry throat.

“Yeah,” he says a little hoarsely. “No worries.”

*

Buck wouldn’t say he’s a coward. The complete opposite in fact. Hell, he spends his days running into burning buildings and other dangerous situations to save people. He is categorically not a coward.

Which is what he keeps telling himself as he does his best to avoid Eddie for the remainder of the shift. He’s not being cowardly about this. He gave his advice and now he’s letting Eddie stew on it. Perfectly normal reaction.

And if he wants to also avoid hearing the outcome of that advice? Well no one needs to know that.

At the end of the shift, the bumpers of the ladder truck are sparkling clean and Buck can see his face in them. He can also see Bobby stood behind him already changed out of his uniform.

“Hey, Cap,” he says turning around. “How’s it going?”

“Just checking you did know your shift is done,” Bobby says.

“Oh,” Buck says, as if he’s just clocked that fact. “Must have lost track of the time.”

“Yeah,” Bobby says slowly. “You all good, kid? Something on your mind?”

“No, nothing,” Buck says, a little too quickly, obviously, because Bobby’s eyes narrow.

“You know you can come talk to me anytime,” he offers.

“I know, Cap.” And Buck does know. It’s just how do you find the words to tell someone that, oh, your soulmate might be someone on your team, but you’re pretty sure it’s an unreciprocated bond. He doesn’t think he could stand that kind of sympathy and pity.

Bobby stands there for a moment longer and Buck shifts a little uneasily. “Get yourself home,” Bobby says eventually. “It’s been a long day.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Buck says, grin a little more relieved than he intended, and gives a small salute. Bobby huffs a laugh and turns to go.

Buck almost calls out to him, a sudden stifling sensation in his chest. But he doesn’t, and Bobby doesn’t look back as he leaves the station.

*

Something about the silence of Abby’s flat grates on him more than usual that night. He’s restless, wanting to get out and surround himself with people, find some way to shake himself out of this funk. He thinks about going for a walk, but he’s not sure that would help. So he busies himself cleaning the flat and making dinner in the hopes that he can distract himself.

It doesn’t work.

He knows, by now, that the best path for him is to move on from Abby, and that means moving out of her flat. They haven’t spoken in weeks. Everyone else assumes they’ve already broken up, so all Buck’s been doing is clinging onto the last threads of their relationship. If he leaves, he admits it’s over for good.

But he’s never been good at leaving, even as everyone leaves him.

There’s one person he wants to talk to before he finally commits. The one person who probably knows Abby just as well as he does, maybe even better.

He calls Carla.

*

Carla looks distinctly like she’s been expecting this conversation for a while when Buck opens the door to her. Buck feels pathetically grateful that, unlike the rest of his friends, she’d waited for him to come to the same conclusion as everyone else. He knows how this conversation is going to end before it’s even started, but he starts it anyway.

“Everyone in my life - my sister, the team - they’re on my side. Now, what I really need right now is to talk to someone on Abby’s side.”

“Okay, Buck, you know I don’t do sides,” Carla interrupts. “But you know - I love both of you.”

“Yeah, but you know her. All right, honestly, maybe even better than I do right now,” he pauses and takes a deep breath. “I, uh, haven’t spoken to her in weeks. The gap between talks keeps getting longer, and the conversations shorter. There’s this- this voice in my head keeps on saying ‘move on, Buck. She’s never gonna come back.’” Carla sighs.

“She still cares about you,” she says. Buck wishes he had that kind of certainty. “She’s just not ready to come home yet.” Carla pauses, like she’s weighing up whether or not to tell him something. “At least not to this one.” Buck takes a second to absorb this.

“Wait, what does that mean?”

“Her brother’s been after her, you know, to come stay with them for a bit,” Carla says gently. “And truthfully, I think it’ll be good for her. I mean, she needs to go and dip her toe in the real world. So, you know, she doesn’t have a fear of being pulled under by all of these memories.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Buck huffs out a laugh. “Everything in this place is hers. She feels less and less a part of it every day. See, this- this whole time, I- I felt like I was being haunted by this memory of her, but- but maybe I’m the ghost. Lingering here when- when I should’ve moved on a long time ago.”

“People move on at different rates,” Carla tells him. “You don’t have to be ready for something just because someone else would be or because someone tells you to be. We all move at our own pace.”

“I guess- I guess part of me has known before now,” Buck confesses. “I just didn’t want to admit to it.”

“So what changed?” Carla asks. Buck could tell her. He could tell her right here and right now. That he thinks he knows who his soulmate is. She would listen.

But the words stick in his throat, years of hiding still forcing him into silence. He shrugs and gives a weak smile.

“I don’t know,” he lies.

*

Of all the members of the 118, Buck thinks Hen is the one who has her life most sorted. Okay, so maybe Bobby might also be, now he’s in a better place, and Hen had that one moment of weakness with Eva, but compared to the rest of them, there’s no competition.

So finding Hen in the locker room, head buried in her hands is a bit of a departure from the usual. Buck hovers in the doorway for a long moment, unsure what to do.

“Hey,” he says eventually. His voice is soft but Hen still starts, as if she hadn’t heard him approach.

“Hey,” she says, voice hoarse like she’s been crying. Buck comes to sit by her on the bench.

“What’s up?” he asks. “Are you and Karen alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine,” Hen says, drawing in a shuddering breath. “It’s not that. It’s- my dad’s in hospital. In a coma.” She sniffs and Buck takes her hand in his. She gives him a watery smile. “They want permission from me to turn off life support. But he’s- I haven’t seen him in years, not since I was a kid, not since he walked out on me and my mom. I don’t know how I can make that decision.” Buck shifts so he’s straddling the bench and pulls her into a hug.

“You know we’ve got you whatever you do,” he tells her. “You’ve _ always_ got us.” She nods into his chest. They stay there for a while, just listening to the noise of the station as one crew leaves and another starts their shift.

“I still hate him,” Hen confesses eventually, face still hidden in his shoulder. “For leaving me. I thought I’d got over it, but then I saw him. And _ God _ if I didn’t want to pull the damn plug myself for a second.”

“I know that feeling,” Buck murmurs. Hen pulls back and gives him a curious look. “My mom left when I was a kid too,” he explains. “And my dad wasn’t great after that. So I know how that feels.” Hen grabs his hand and squeezes.

“I just- I don’t want to turn off the life support _ because_ I hate him. That feels like he’s won somehow.” 

“What do the doctors say?” Hen shrugs

“That there’s very little hope of him waking up without serious brain damage.”

“Seems like there’s not much of a choice.”

“No, there isn’t,” Hen sighs. “I guess I just wanted not to _ feel _ anything when I did it. But something like that, you’re never gonna not feel, are you? Something like that’s never gonna not hurt. And people say you should forgive them, but that’s a load of bullshit.”

Buck hums in agreement. “Wanting you to forgive when they haven’t even asked for forgiveness.”

“Exactly,” Hen says. “I’m not handing that out for free. Fuck our parents and fuck anyone who says we need to forgive them because they’re blood or whatever shit. _ We _ are the ones who decide how and when and why to forgive.” She pauses and meets Buck’s eyes. “We’re each other’s family now,” she continues fiercely. “Family is what you make of it, so fuck them.”

Her ferocity burns into Buck, and he finds himself grinning. She grips his hand again and squeezes.

*

Buck moves out of Abby’s flat on a rainy Thursday morning. It’s almost as though the weather is choosing to reflect his mood. He knows that he’s over Abby - honestly, he’s been over her a while, but being over and moving on are two separate things. So here he is, finally taking that next step. Even if it does only end him up on Chim’s couch.

Baby steps are a thing.

It’s just that he misses having someone like that. To come home to. Bobby and Athena have each other, Hen has Karen, Maddie and Chim have found each other. And Eddie? Well his wife has just come back, and he has Christopher anyway. Buck is the only one without someone. He doesn’t mean to be self-pitying. He doesn’t want to be. He just misses the company, that’s all.

Maybe that’s why he prefers to crash on someone else’s sofa rather than go through the whole mess of apartment hunting. He’s never lived alone, not properly. Not in Pennsylvania, not in South America, and never in L.A. If he mentioned it to Maddie, she’s probably say that it came from something like how their father used to leave him alone in the house as a kid, while he went out drinking. That is, if Buck had ever told her the full extent of that happening.

Regardless, Buck doesn’t like the quiet of living alone. It’s not necessarily having someone to talk to, but someone else’s presence in a house always makes it feel more like a home to him.

So he moves in with Chim.

It’s not ideal, he knows. Chim is reluctant to have him there, for all that he pretends otherwise. But it’s just going to be temporary. He’ll find his own place soon.

Really he will.

*

After having a gun pointed at him in a slightly more stressful shift than usual, Buck could definitely do with a stiff drink. Chim is keen enough, which is how he and Buck end up down at the nearest bar to Chim’s apartment. It’s not a busy night, but there’s a steady hum of chatter and something unwinds in Buck’s shoulders for the first time since that morning.

“Aw! The world looks so different now that I’m single again,” he jokes.

“Buck, you’ve been single for months,” Chim points out.

“Yeah, only circumstantially,” Buck waves him off. “I know Abby’s been gone for a while, but, in my head, we've been together this whole time. But now I’m out of her place-”

“And living on my couch,” Chim adds. Buck stumbles through a ‘thank you’ that Chim waves off. They sit quietly for a moment before the words come spilling out of Buck’s mouth.

“I’m just- I’m nervous, you know?”

“Are you afraid to get back on the horse?” Chim asks.

“I don’t want to revert back to being Buck 1.0.” _ And that’s only half of it_, he thinks. “I-I know I’m single Buck again, but I want to be single Buck 2.0. Like, if I’d come in here with Abby, I would never have noticed that blonde over there, licking the salted rim of her margarita glass while she maintains strong, intimate eye contact.”

Chim twists round in his seat. “Okay, is that really happening?”

“Say I go over there, right?” Buck continues. “I, uh I talk to her, I make a joke, she smiles, we both laugh. Our-our shoulders touch, there’s a moment, I lean in a little closer, she doesn’t resist. One drink, two compliments later, we end up in bed together having totally meaningless sex.”

“Yeah, that sounds awful,” Chim says dryly. Buck wishes briefly that he would take this a little more seriously.

“I just- I don’t want to be that guy again.”

“So don’t be,” Chim says, as if it’s that simple. But Buck has had years worth of forming habits and being unable to break them, no matter how hard he’s tried. He has no reason to think he won’t just slip back into this one in the same way.

“What can I get for you?” A waitress interrupts his train of thought.

“Ah, just, uh, two IPAs, please.”

“And a glass of chardonnay,” Chim adds.

When the waitress is gone, Buck asks, “Who’s the wine for?”

“Maddie. She was parking.” Chim says this like it’s the most obvious fact in the world. Buck, meanwhile, is struggling to get his head around the fact that Chim and Maddie have been hanging out, let alone that Maddie’s going to be here tonight.

“Uh, you invited my sister?” he asks. Chim doesn’t have a chance to reply, because that’s when Maddie shows up. It takes about five seconds for both of them to forget that he’s there. He takes a draft of his beer and leans back into his chair. Watching Maddie and Chim here, it’s almost blindingly obvious that they’re soulmates. They’re so in sync with one another. And as he thinks that, Maddie almost knocks Chim’s beer off the table. Except Chim’s there to catch it, not even looking at the beer, too focused on Maddie.

Buck wants that for himself so badly he aches with it.

Maybe the reason he hooks up with Taylor Kelly later that evening is related to that. Some kind of craving for companionship, however fleeting it may be. Because him and Taylor? That will only ever be a Buck 1.0 relationship, no matter how much he might wish otherwise. Besides, the first thing Taylor says to him is that she doesn’t have a soulmark so it’s never going to become something more.

And maybe Buck’s starting to think he wants that something more.

*

The following Friday, Chim wastes no time in bringing up Buck’s past exploits in front of Maddie. Her disapproving look is almost enough to send him straight back to being six years old and playing with her toys when she told him not to. _ Almost_.

He manages to distract her briefly by asking about the food, but Maddie with questions is like a dog with a bone. Impossible to dislodge from her mission.

“Let’s go back to you stealing a hook and ladder for a hookup,” she says, once they’re settled on the sofas with the food laid out on the table.

“It’s your fault,” Buck tries to tell her. “You know, you always told me to go after what I wanted. Be confident. Girls aren’t scary.” By the look on her face, this isn’t working.

“Um, you were 11. Don’t you have impulse control?”

“Sorry, never heard of it,” Buck says. Maddie makes to throw a fry at him and he raises his arms in defence automatically, a grin on his face.

Buck turns to Chim. “All I’m saying is she’s beautiful, she’s cool. And then she left me standing in a parking lot.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling this is a little more karmic,” Chim says, absolutely no sympathy in his tone. “Chickens coming home to roost. You’ve been Bucked. Buck 2.0 has found himself a Buckette 1.0. Dude, you’re dating yourself.”

“We’re not dating, okay?” Buck protests. He pauses and frowns. “But you two are. You guys are dating each other.” Suddenly everything makes sense to him about their relationship. They’ve seemingly slipped into dating each other without actually realising that that’s what they’re doing. Buck wonders if they know they’re soulmates or if they’re just as oblivious about that as well.

Maddie and Chim burst into protestations, speaking over one another in their desperation to assure Buck that they’re definitely not dating. Buck just sits there, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Turnabout is fair play when it comes to Maddie bugging him about his love life.

The sound of his phone ringing interrupts Maddie and Chim. He doesn’t recognise the number, but he slips into the other room to answer. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Maddie and Chim flick each other a glance.

“Yeah, this is Buck,” he answers.

“Hey.” He doesn’t recognise the voice at the other end of the line for a moment, but then she says, “It’s Ali.”

“Oh, uh, hey. How- how’re you doing?”

“I’m great! How are you?”

“Uh, good. Good.” There’s a pause, and Buck feels a creeping sense of awkwardness.

Evidently Ali feels it too because she blurts out, “Would you like to get a drink sometime? Like a coffee?”

“Um, coffee, uh, yeah,” Buck stutters. It’s painful just to listen to himself right now. “I’m- I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I-I have a shift tomorrow, and-”

Ali interrupts him with a soft laugh. “I didn’t mean tonight, Buck. But sometime would be nice. Call me and let me know?”

“Yeah,” Buck says. “I- I will.”

“Great. Well, you have my number now so…” Ali trails off. “Hope to see you soon?”

“Alright,” Buck says. “Alright.” There’s another awkward pause.

“Uh, bye then,” Ali says, another soft laugh in her tone.

“Goodbye.” Buck hangs up and takes a moment to mentally kick himself for apparently being incapable of speech around Ali. He’s never had this problem before. Then again, he’s also never turned down a girl before.

“Being Buck 2.0 sucks,” he tells Chim and Maddie as he rejoins them. Chim smirks but Maddie looks at Buck with something akin to pride on her face. Buck thinks he might like to see that expression more often.

*

Sometimes, Buck shows up at calls and has a sense that things are going to go badly. Call it a gut feeling, but he always knows when it’s going to end in tragedy. So when they show up at this one, an elderly man trapped between his car and gate, and Buck’s whole body is filled with a nervous unsteadiness, like he’s been knocked off kilter, he knows something’s going to happen.

They can’t save the man. They’re too late for him. That’s the first of it. Even as Bobby and Eddie try their best, Buck can tell it won’t be enough. He’s sat in the back of an ambulance, the man’s husband, Thomas, sat next to him.

“He can’t go,” Thomas is saying. “He’s my heart, my everything. My _ soulmate_.” Buck rests a hand on his shoulder. It’s clear from Eddie and Bobby’s body language that they’ve lost Mitchell. Thomas knows it too. “When we got married,” he says, “we thought, what the hell, we have so little life left, we might as well live. That was Mitchell, always daring the clock. And me, I always followed along. All those foolish things we did. We only ever wanted to- to go together. That’s love.” His voice is choking up towards the end, and all Buck can do is sit there helplessly and let him talk.

“I’m sorry. I really am,” he says. “I guess I can only hope to find something that good.”

“You don’t find it, son. You make it.”

A silence opens up between them. Eddie and Bobby have gone back round to the truck, so it’s just Buck and Thomas. They’re both watching Mitchell’s body as if vainly hoping they might see his chest start to rise again.

“Son, you mind if I have just a few moments alone with him?” Thomas asks eventually.

“Of course. It’s no problem,” Buck says and helps him over to the body. Then he goes to pick up the photos that must have scattered from the photo album after Thomas dropped it. There are tens of them, showing Mitchell and Thomas smiling widely at the camera at various ages. Here on a date, there a housewarming. Their wedding, their family. Each time together. Buck’s eyes sting with tears and he swallows past a lump in his throat.

What he said to Thomas was true, about only hoping to find something that good. But if he could find something just half as good, he would be happy.

It takes him a moment to realise that he hasn’t heard any noises from behind him for a little while, but it’s only when he turns around that he realises something is wrong.

Thomas is lying on top of Mitchell’s body, collapsed over it like he was giving him one last hug. But he’s relaxed, all the tension flooded out of his body. And that’s what clues Buck in.

“Thomas?” he asks, already moving towards him, hand outstretched. When Thomas doesn’t respond, he calls out, “Uh, E-Eddie! Cap! Come here.” He starts compressions, chanting under his breath, “Come on, Thomas. Come on. Stay with me. Come on. Come on, Thomas. Come on.” He can see Eddie out of the corner of his eye shaking his head but he continues still.

“Buck,” Bobby says quietly. “He’s gone, kid.”

“No,” Buck protests. He feels Eddie’s hand come to rest on his shoulder. He knows it’s supposed to be a comfort, but right now all it’s doing is reminding him of what he doesn’t have. What he _ can’t _ have. He stands abruptly, dislodging it, and turns away. His hands are shaking and he needs to get away all of a sudden. Something about Eddie and Bobby’s gazes is stifling.

He thinks he mumbles something about putting the ambulance gear back, but he’s only really half-aware of what he’s doing. He completes his tasks on autopilot, silent as Mitchell and Thomas are taken away and they drive back to the station. Neither Bobby or Eddie tries to talk to him, and he’s grateful for that. He doesn’t want to talk right now. He thinks that maybe all he wants to do is get so drunk that he forgets any of this happened.

*

He doesn’t get drunk, if only because he doesn’t think he could stand the look on Bobby’s face if he ever found out. He clings onto that, to all of them, with the desperation of a drowning man. He doesn’t go back to Chim’s flat, but he doesn’t go out either. Instead, he goes to a gym and uses the climbing wall there until he reaches the point of near-exhaustion.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s resolved.

*

Thomas told Buck that you don’t find love, you make it, so that’s what Buck sets out to do. And step one of that involves him taking Ali up on her offer of a coffee date.

Ali’s great. She’s gorgeous and funny, and she seems to like Buck just as much as he likes her. And that’s before they’ve even started talking.

He could make this work, he thinks. There are plenty of stories of people who have long and loving relationships but aren’t soulmates. They could be two of them. Sure, so the way she smiles at him doesn’t make his heart leap in his chest like it does when Eddie smiles, but they could get there. He’s sure of it.

As a kid, he’d wondered why people bothered to date when their soulmate was out there, waiting for them. If you knew who you’d end up with, then why did you even try with anyone else? Of course, as he’d got older, he’d realised that some soulmarks were unrequited, and others faded. And that you could always grow to love someone who wasn’t your soulmate.

Every now and then he would run his fingers over the name on his wrist, reminding himself of the seven letters there. And then he’d put them out of his mind, cover them up, and throw himself into finding some girl he could love.

It had never worked out, and gradually, those dates had turned into hook-ups. But here now, with Ali, Buck thinks that maybe, maybe, this could be something.

*

The thing with him and Ali is that it’s easy, easy in a way Buck hasn’t found it to be since Abby. He likes spending time with Ali. They’re both in the same boat, really, not yet having found their soulmate (although Buck may not be entirely truthful with her when it comes to that). It makes things simple.

It also leaves Buck feeling like he’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he pushes that thought out of his mind determinedly.

They’ve mostly been going out for coffee dates, but when Ali suggests that they go to watch a hockey game, Buck doesn’t hesitate to say yes. “My brother has season tickets,” she explains. “But he and his partner are out of town this weekend so he said I could use them.”

“I’ve never been to a game before,” Buck confesses. Ali gasps in exaggerated shock.

“Okay, then we’re definitely going.” Buck laughs and lets her pull him along.

It turns out Ali is a huge hockey fan, so ‘watching a game’ consists mostly of her yelling at the referees with thousands of other fans. Buck sits back in his seat and tries his best to follow the puck as it races across the ice.

From time to time, he glances over at Ali. Each time, she’s too absorbed in the game to notice, her eyes glued to the play. Buck thinks he could get used to this. He _ wants _ to get used to this.

The Kings run out 3-1 winners in the end. Ali chatters away excitedly about the game, while Buck nods and smiles at every mention of ‘power plays’ and ‘penalty kills’. After a bit, Buck risks settling his arm across Ali’s shoulders and pulling her into his side.

She smiles up at him, tangling her hand in the one he placed on her shoulder, and it feels _ right_.

This will work out. Buck trusts it.

*

The first Buck knows of anything is hearing Eddie’s surprised voice saying “Shannon.” Buck glances up. She’s stood in front of Eddie, just a few feet away from where Buck and Chim are manning a stall at the toy drive.

“What are you doing here?” Eddie asks, confusion apparent in his tone.

“You won’t answer my texts or return my calls,” Shannon tells him angrily.

“This is not the place,” Eddie tries to say, raising a hand to touch her elbow as if to guide her elsewhere. Shannon jerks away from him.

“Maybe it’s the perfect place. We can actually have a conversation that doesn’t end up with us in bed.” Eddie winces at that, eyes flicking over to Buck and Chim, who look away quickly.

“Come on, then,” he says frustratedly, and leads her into the locker room.

Buck knew Eddie and Shannon were back together. Really he did. It’s just that, up until now, he hadn’t been confronted with the evidence of it. It’s seeing them together that really hurts. Eddie’s his soulmate, but there’s no clearer indication than this that he isn’t Eddie’s.

Resisting the urge to turn and watch their conversation, he pastes on a shaky smile and turns back to the toy drive. If he can just focus on this one thing, doing his job here, maybe he’ll make it through the rest of this. He has to. He can’t let anyone know this secret.

He remembers, suddenly, when he first got his soulmark. When his dad took one look at the name, a disgusted expression crossing his face, and said, “You’ll want to cover that up.”

And now he takes that, and he carefully packs away those emotions that seeing Shannon brought to the surface. He covers them up.

Besides, he has Ali now anyway.

*

Buck despises Doug, but no more so than when he and Chim try to surprise Maddie with a Christmas tree. He can tell from the way she says, “A Christmas tree,” that it’s not going to be a welcome surprise.

“Uh, is this okay? Is this the wrong kind of surprise?” Chim asks, worriedly.

“No, no, no,” Maddie tries to insist. “No. It’s so sweet. Really, I- I love that you did this.”

“You just didn’t want it.” Buck can hear the disappointment in Chim’s voice as much as he tries to hide it. “That’s okay. I mean, we shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I just really wasn’t gonna do much for Christmas this year, ‘cause all of my decorations and stuff are back in Pennsylvania.”

“And that is why we bought everything you need,” Buck explains desperately trying to steer the conversation in a happier direction. “We have lights, we have ornaments. We even have an angel high for on top of the tree.” He isn’t expecting Maddie’s panicked reaction on seeing the angel.

“No.” She swipes it to the floor. “Angels are creepy.” There’s silence.

“You know what,” Chim says. “I think we might have overstepped. Maddie should be able to pick out her own decorations. We’ll just- we’ll just- we’ll just bring this back to the store.”

“What are you talking about?” Buck asks. “You can’t return a tree.” He turns to Maddie. “Hey, come on. You always loved Christmas, right? Ornaments, stockings, cookies. You made your own bows.”

“I’m not really feeling the holiday this year, okay?” He can see the lie in her face as she says it.

“Well, no. No, it’s not okay. Come on, what’s going on with you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Maddie tries to insist. The look on her face makes Buck want to go on some kind of rampage. Preferably ending with beating Doug to a pulp. In the background, Chim says something, but Buck’s hardly listening.

“So you hate Christmas now? Something else I can thank Doug for, huh?”

“No, I don’t hate Christmas, but I’m starting not to like you very much, okay?” Maddie snaps. “Just let it go.”

“Maddie-” Buck tries, but Maddie spins away from him and storms into the kitchen. Buck follows after her.

“You can’t come into my house, Buck, and act this way.”

“‘Come into my house’? I’m your brother.” Maddie doesn’t respond, instead picking up a knife and starting to angrily chop up the vegetables she had clearly left to answer the door. “Maddie, please. Can you just _ talk _ to me?”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Maddie, why are you still letting him control your life like this?” Buck cries in frustration. That gets Maddie’s attention because she turns around, knife in hand, and glares at him.

“You have no right to tell me how I should or shouldn’t be dealing with my trauma, Evan Buckley,” she says in as cold a voice as Buck has ever heard her use. Buck scrubs a hand through his hair and sighs, deflating.

“You’re right,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I just- I get so _ angry _ when I think about him.” Maddie softens, putting down the knife. “I thought this would help, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Maddie says. “For snapping at you.”

“That’s not your fault,” Buck says immediately. “You know that was just me stomping all over you with my big feet.”

“I want to tell you,” Maddie says, and her voice cracks. “I do. But I’m not there yet.” Buck walks over to her and tugs her into a hug. Maddie’s shaking hands wrap around his waist, and his heart breaks a little.

“Any time you wanna talk, Mads, I’m here. You know that. I’ve got you.”

“Yeah,” she says in a small voice. “I know.”

*

When Eddie asks Buck to come with him and Christopher to see Santa, he doesn’t know how to respond for a moment. Half of him wants to ask whether this isn’t something Shannon, Christopher’s _ mother_, should be doing. The other half wants to say _ yes I’ll come _ instantly. “Uh, sure,” he ends up saying, with an attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “If he wants me there.”

Eddie cocks his head and a tiny grin quirks his lips. Buck’s heart thumps unsteadily.

“He didn’t want us to go without you.”

*

Later that evening, he and Eddie are sat on the edge of the fountain, waiting for Christopher. They haven’t said much, both content just to sit and watch Christopher, but Buck can feel Eddie fidgeting beside him, tension evident in his body.

“So, not gonna say anything?” he asks eventually. Buck knows immediately what he means, but he wants to discuss it about as much as he wants a colonoscopy. That is, not at all.

“Nah,” he says. “About what?”

Eddie huffs a humourless laugh. “You know what about.”

“I figured it was none of my business,” Buck hedges, desperate to keep this conversation from going the direction he knows it’s heading towards.

“It’s not.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” There’s silence and Buck thinks that’s that. Conversation averted.

“It just kind of happened, okay?” Eddie blurts suddenly. “It’s not like I planned it.”

“I never said you did,” Buck tells him, voice as level as he can make it.

“I only even reached out to her because I needed her help getting Christopher into his new school.”

“Totally understandable.” It feels like, right now, Eddie just needs to get this out. He’s not really listening to what Buck’s saying. Which is great, because Buck doesn’t really _ know _ what he’s saying.

“We just kind of ended up in bed.”

“Ah, these things happen,” Buck says, imbuing his voice with as much Buck 1.0 as he can in an attempt to hide anything else. “It’s not like you’re breaking any commandments. You guys are still married.”

“Yeah. I’m sneaking around behind my kid’s back with his mother.” That makes Buck stop. He assumed all this was going on with Christopher’s blessing.

“Christopher doesn’t know?” he asks, just to make sure.

“I don’t know what he knows,” Eddie sighs. “These kids sense things, right? The other day, I made her sneak out so he wouldn’t see her there.”

“Trying to protect your kid. I mean, she ran out on him, right?”

“I ran out first,” Eddie confesses. “I ran out on both of them. See, when Christopher was first diagnosed I was in Afghanistan. Right at the end of my tour. Instead of going back home I re-enlisted. I told myself it was to pay the bills.”

“But you were running away, too.”

“Yeah. But I got to pretend like it was for a noble cause. Serving my country. But when Shannon broke, nobody thought she was a hero. She just got called evil. And now she wants back in his life.”

“Yeah. So why don’t you let her? Seems like she’s already back in yours.”

“That’s what’s got me confused. Would I be doing it for Christopher or for me? I guess sex complicates everything. Even knowing whether I really want this.”

“You said it, brother.”

Eddie digs his thumbs into his eye and sighs. “You said, last time, that you’d give anything to have your mom back. So I have to do that for Christopher, right?” Buck suddenly wishes very fiercely that he had never said anything.

“It’s different,” he says quietly, pointedly staring down at his feet while he speaks. “She left because of my dad. Or because of what she couldn’t get from my dad. And then she didn’t love me or Maddie enough to take us with her. Shannon still loves you and Christopher. She wouldn’t want back if she didn’t.” He takes a deep breath and adds, “I know I said I’d have given anything to have her back. That was as a kid. But as an adult, I can see she made her choice and that choice just didn’t include us. You say Shannon got scared, she wasn’t ready? My mom _ was _ ready, she just stopped loving us. They’re different people, different situations.”

“I’m sorry, man,” Eddie says, equally softly. He hesitates and then places a hand on Buck’s shoulder. Buck can feel its warmth through his jacket, and lets himself lean ever so slightly into it.

*

When they see Christopher coming out of Santa’s grotto, Eddie leaps up. Buck stands more slowly, and trails a step behind him.

“How’d it go, pal?” Eddie asks, bending down to meet Christopher’s eyes.

“It went great,” Chris tells him.

“So what’d you ask for?” Eddie questions him, but Christopher shakes his head.

“Can’t tell. Santa said he’d work on it.”

“Oh, man,” Eddie says with a laugh. “Let’s go.” He lifts Christopher into his arms. Buck can’t take his eyes off them.

“You two have an adorable son,” the elf says, snapping Buck out of his reverie. For a moment, Buck is filled with such need that he’s breathless.

“Um... Thank you,” he finally manages to say.

*

Buck and Ali text each other regularly, often just with strange things that happened in their respective days, so Buck isn’t immediately concerned when she calls him up. “Hey,” he answers. “What’s up?”

“Hey, do you have a minute to talk?” she replies.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “Is everything alright?”

“This is kind of awkward, I don’t actually know how to say this,” Ali tells him. She laughs nervously. “It’s just… I sort of met my soulmate?”

Buck is stunned for a second, but then he recovers. “Wow.” His voice comes out as little more than a croak so he tries again. “Wow. That’s amazing, Ali.”

“I know we were, um, were giving it a go and I don’t want to hurt you, but…” Ali trails off. “She’s my soulmate, Buck.”

“No, yeah, of course,” Buck forces out. He thinks he does a reasonable job of sounding happy. “You can’t-” he swallows, “You can’t pass that up.”

Ali makes a few more apologies and sympathetic noises, but Buck can tell her mind’s elsewhere now. She’s done the hard part of breaking it off with him, and now all she really wants to do is go back to her soulmate. He can’t begrudge her that, even if it hurts a lot right now.

A part of him had selfishly hoped for a little longer before she found her soulmate. But he guesses that’s the worst thing about an unrequited bond. Watching other people get to be happy with no hope of the same for you.

*

When Maddie first asks Buck if he’ll teach her boxing, she looks at him as if she’s expecting him to laugh at her. Which is why he says yes immediately. He’s still not entirely sure of their footing since their argument at Christmas, even if they made up in the end, but she’s his sister. He would do anything for her, and if that includes becoming her punching bag from time to time? Well, there’s no argument for him.

“Okay, let’s, uh, let’s work on that two-three-two combo,” he says, hands held out in front of him as targets. “Okay, I want you to be ready with that devastating hook if you ever see Doug again.”

“Whoa,” Maddie says, lowering her hands. “That is not why I’m doing this.”

“Really? You, uh, you don’t want to kick your abusive ex’s ass someday? ‘Cause I would.”

“I’m not doing anything for Doug anymore, okay? This is just the next chapter in Maddie’s fresh start. Come on, haircut, apartment, dispatcher of the month. I don’t know if you heard.”

“About a thousand times,” Buck says, rolling his eyes. He’s only pretending though. Really, he couldn’t be happier for her, even if she doesn’t seem to be convinced.

“Oh, is that what this is about? I’m thriving, and you can’t handle it,” she teases.

“I’m great,” he insists, nudging her to raise her hands again.

“Oh, yeah, you’re doing great.” She punctuates the sentence with a hit to his hands. “You’re still sleeping in my dining room.” She pauses to land a few more hits. “By the way, what happened to Earthquake Girl?” Buck freezes momentarily, only for a second, but long enough for Maddie to notice and take a step back.

“Ali?” Buck asks, stalling for time. Maddie raises an eyebrow, hands planted on her hips, and Buck’s transported back to being twelve, with an 18-year-old Maddie looking down at him, the exact same expression on her face. He sighs and removes his mitts to rub at his face.

“She, uh, she called me the other day to say she’d met her soulmate,” he confesses ruefully.

“Oh,” Maddie says. “Oh, _ Buck_.”

“It’s fine,” Buck insists. “I’m happy for her.” And he is, it’s not a lie. Some day he might even be able to say it in a way that doesn’t sound like one. “Anyway, what’s your excuse?” he continues, keen to stop dwelling on the topic.

“What are you talking about?” Maddie asks, confused.

“How’s Chimney?”

“Chimney? We’re friends.” She’s deflecting and he can tell.

“Except, ooh, _ you _ want to _ date _him.”

“I never told you that,” Maddie protests.

“Oh, you didn’t have to. You’re my sister, remember?” Maddie pulls a face, but doesn’t deny it. She gestures for him to put his mitts back on and he knows he’s not going to get an answer from her. He could push it, but he won’t.

Maddie and Chim are soulmates after all. It’s inevitable.

*

It’s an odd day when Chim’s quiet in the truck to and from a call. He’s never normally so subdued and Buck has to admit to being a little worried about him. And when Chim waves away Bobby’s offer of food, that’s when he knows something is wrong. Hen flicks a glance at Buck and together they crowd Chim into a sofa.

“Okay, intervention time,” Hen says. “What’s up?” Chim flicks a glance at first Hen, then Buck, and then behind them where Eddie and Bobby are in the kitchen, far enough away so they don’t look to be eavesdropping.

Then, he looks at Buck again.

“I think,” he says carefully. “I found my soulmate.”

“Chim, that’s amazing!” Hen exclaims, a smile breaking onto her face. Chim is still looking at Buck intently. Eddie and Bobby give up any pretence of not listening and make their way over.

“You know you don’t need my permission or anything,” Buck says. Hen looks between them confusedly, then up at Eddie and Bobby in a silent question. “Maddie would probably kill you if you even thought about asking,” he continues. Chim gives an abortive shrug.

“Might not be mutual,” he mutters. There’s a chorus of denial behind him.

“Chimney…” Hen starts in a warning tone.

“Well, it’s true!” he protests. “It’s not like I know anything about her soulmark.”

“Anyone looking at the two of you could tell you’re meant to be together,” Bobby says, but Chim shrugs again and looks down.

“Chim.” Buck leans in and rests a hand on Chim’s knee, forcing him to look up and meet his eyes. “She doesn’t know your name.”

“What do you mean, of course she knows my name,” Chim says, confused.

“No.” Buck shakes his head. “She doesn’t know your real name.” Something clicks in Chim’s gaze and Buck knows he gets what he’s saying.

“Oh,” he says. “_ Oh _ .” He leaps up from the sofa. Buck looks up at him with a wide grin. “I need to make a phone call,” he says. He starts off then stops. “Wait, what do I even _ say_?”

“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” Bobby tells him.

Later, standing upstairs and watching Chim and Maddie below, Buck feels… he doesn’t know what. He’s happy for them both, of course he is. No one deserves happiness more than his sister. But he also feels that usual pang of want that goes along with seeing someone with their soulmate.

He closes his eyes against it for a moment, then opens them and smiles wider down at Maddie.

*

Three days later and Buck wishes with all his might that he could go back to that moment and live in it forever. He isn’t sure he’s ever felt a panic quite like this. _ Maddie’s gone_, his brain tells him. _ Chim’s bleeding out and Maddie’s gone_. But it’s not computing. This can’t be happening. “If you love someone, they’ll leave you,” his dad once told him. Now, it keeps circling through his mind. _ They didn’t _ leave, he tells himself fiercely. _ They were _taken. And he knows it was Doug. He knows with a bone-deep certainty that Doug did this. He’s full of panicky energy, wanting to chase after Doug. Wanting to make him hurt for what he’s done to Maddie. Wanting to rip him limb from limb.

But Detective Marks just won’t _ listen _ to him. “It was Doug,” he keeps saying. “It was _ Doug_.” Doug’s going to kill Maddie and Buck won’t be able to stop him, all because Marks _ won’t listen to him_.

So he takes Chim’s phone. He knows it’s stupid the moment he’s done it. He knows he won’t get away with it. But he’s hoping that by the time someone catches up with him, he’ll at least have done something worthwhile. Something more than whatever they’re doing here. He can’t sit around while nothing happens.

Sat in the hospital, guarded by a police officer, he has plenty of time to think about what Doug could be doing. He already showed he was happy enough to stab Chim, so what’s he going to do to Maddie? Buck’s hands are shaking and when Athena comes to stand in front of him, he looks up in panic, half expecting this to be the worst news. But she must see something in his face, as she relents and tells him to get to the car.

For a moment, he doesn’t follow, but then he’s up and moving. Even Bobby’s instructions to behave don’t irritate him like they might because he’s finally able to do something to help Maddie.

*

“You’re awfully quiet over there, Buckaroo,” Athena says, once she’s got off the phone to Josh. Buck glances over and then down at his hands. He’s had the same thoughts circling his mind for the past ten minutes, an endless litany of _ what ifs_. He doesn’t want to consider any scenario where Maddie isn’t safe and alive, but his brain just won’t stop providing them. He rubs at his eyes.

“Uh, when we get there what- what do you think we’re going to find?” he asks and suddenly he can’t stop the worry spilling out. “I mean, he- he threatened to kill her, you know, a- almost did kill Chimney. What if- what if he-”

“No,” Athena tells him with such certainty that the panic recedes the slightest bit. “My gut is telling me not to count your sister out just yet. Maddie didn’t just rebuild her life. She rebuilt herself. Doug may have her, but I don’t think he has any idea who he’s dealing with now.” Buck nods, clinging to that certainty with everything he has.

“I was supposed to take care of her,” he says. “I was- I told her she could stay- I-”

“Buckaroo,” Athena says softly. More softly than she’s ever spoken to him before. He must sound really scared. “Neither you nor Maddie could have possibly predicted or stopped anything this man decided to do. The only thing we can do now is work on getting Maddie home safe, and make sure he never has the chance to do anything like this again. And I promise you that going over all those _ what ifs _ in your head isn’t going to help.” She pauses, reaches over the gearstick and squeezes his hand briefly, in an uncharacteristic gesture. “We _ are _ going to catch him, Buck. We’re going to make that son of a bitch pay.”

*

When they find Doug’s phone, but not Doug or Maddie, Buck can feel the panic start to build again. It’s been simmering under his skin since they left L.A., but now, with little hope of tracking Doug, it’s rising again. Athena’s suggestion of visiting the gas station seems like a last-chance saloon. If they can’t find Maddie, Buck doesn’t know what he’ll do. He doesn’t want to think about it, but the longer they’re out here _ not _ finding her, the more his brain fixates on the idea that they never will.

He’s never been gladder than when Athena, with enviable calmness, realises that the car Doug stole has GPS. His hands have been shaking non-stop since they found the dead gas station attendant because if Doug could do that, shoot a man that cold-bloodedly, what might he be doing to Maddie? He’s definitely more of a hindrance than a help to Athena and Detective Marks at this point, but he’s grateful that neither of them are mentioning that fact.

And then the car’s GPS pings, and they’re closer to finding Maddie than ever before. But it feels like every time they catch a break, they hit another dead end, because they find the rental abandoned, somewhere along a road up to some holiday cabins. The thought that they won’t find them, or worse, that they will, but not alive, is making itself more and more known in Buck’s mind now. And when they find that there are over 300 cabins to search, it just gets louder.

Buck doesn’t even let himself hope that the gunshots the Sheriff heard are anything to do with them.

Not until they find the cabin broken into, and blood in the snow. And then he’s running, yelling Maddie’s name. Blood could mean anything, he tries to tell himself. Anything at all.

It feels like an age, but then he hears a faint voice calling, “Buck?”

“Maddie,” he calls back, running in the direction it came from.

And then he can see her, stumbling through the snow, blood stark red on her pale skin. But she’s alive. She’s _ alive _ and he’s never felt relief quite like this in his life. When he reaches her, he grabs onto her tightly. She’s cold, so cold, and she’s crying into his neck. So he pulls her closer and tells her he’s here. Somewhere behind them, he can hear Athena speaking into a phone or radio or something. But he doesn’t care. Nothing that happens from here on out matters to him because Maddie is alive.

“I didn’t give up,” she’s sobbing into the freezing air. “I didn’t give up.”

“You did so good,” Buck tells her, voice cracking. “You did so good.”

As he clutches Maddie close to him, Buck thinks of all the ways they might have failed to find her. If they hadn’t traced Doug’s phone, if the truck driver hadn’t noticed them at the gas station, if Maddie hadn’t left the rental papers, if the car hadn’t been fitted with GPS, if the Sheriff hadn’t heard gunshots. So many ways and they still found her. Buck has never really believed in luck of any sort, but he thinks that he might now.

*

In the ambulance, riding to the nearest hospital, Maddie clutches his hand and won’t let go. That’s fine by Buck because he doesn’t want to let go of her either. Maddie hasn’t yet said a word about what happened, but Buck knows from Athena that they found Doug’s body lying in the snow. Buck can’t feel anything but viciously glad that he’s dead. It means Maddie’s safe from him and that’s all Buck cares about.

The ambulance goes over a bump, and Maddie winces. “Almost there,” Buck says, squeezing her hand in both his. “You’re doing great.”

“Tired,” Maddie mumbles. Her eyes look about to drift shut, and a spike of panic jolts through Buck. He can’t have gone through all this to lose her now.

“Uh, hey, hey, Maddie,” he says, leaning in. “I- I know- I know you’re tired, but I- I need you to keep your eyes open for me. Yeah, you- you know the drill.”

“Uh-huh.” She looks at him blearily, but she’s at least looking at him.

“Yeah, just, uh just like that.” Buck pauses and searches for something to say, to keep her attention on him. “Hey, you, uh you think you had a hard day. Athena and I have been running all over the state looking for you. I wasn’t dressed for snow.”

“Me, either,” Maddie replies with a small smile. Buck squeezes her hand again.

“Athena said she’d, uh she'd call Bobby, let everyone know that you’re okay. They are gonna be so relieved. Chimney- Chimney most of all.” Buck isn’t expecting Maddie’s face to crumple so completely in the way it does.

“Chimney’s alive?” she asks, a sob in her tone. “Oh, my God.”

“Yea- Maddie, no, yeah, Ch-Chimney’s alive. He, uh. He-he made it through. You both did,” Buck reassures her. When her face crumples, he drops to his knees and presses his forehead against hers. “You both made it, Mads.”

*

Buck near about collapses into a chair in the hospital waiting room once Maddie’s been taken away. The adrenaline that had kept him going after her is wearing off rapidly and he feels shaky and off-balance. He’s in such a daze that he doesn’t realise Bobby’s standing right next to him until his hand lands on Buck’s shoulder. Buck doesn’t even startle, just looks up to meet Bobby’s concerned gaze.

“How’re you doing?” he asks and Buck frowns. Surely Bobby should be asking how Maddie’s doing, not him.

“I’m fine,” he says, confused. “Why?”

“You’re shaking, Buck,” Bobby tells him gently. Buck looks down at his hands and, sure enough, they’re trembling.

“Oh,” he says.

“Did they check you for shock?” Bobby asks. He looks about to call someone over to help, looking around, presumably for one of the hospital staff.

“I’m not in shock,” Buck says. “I promise. I just-” He bites his lip. “I thought I’d lost her, Bobby,” he admits in a whisper. “I thought we weren’t gonna get there in time and that Doug would have got to her. I thought I was gonna lose her.”

“But you didn’t,” Bobby tells him. “You’re both still here.”

“If he’d killed her,” Buck says, quiet like he’s confessing something. “I don’t know what I’d have done. I don’t- I don’t want to think about what I’d have done.” Bobby sits down next to him.

“Come here,” he says softly. “Come here.” Buck lets himself be wrapped in a hug. It’s not the most comfortable hug - their being sat on hard plastic hospital chairs puts paid to that - but, as Buck shakes against him, Bobby whispers, “You’re both still here,” over and over.

*

No one ever said being a firefighter wasn’t a stressful job, but Buck is certain that he has never been quite as stressed as when the 911 system goes down in the middle of the day. The shift starts off alright, with a school visit, but it rapidly devolves from there. It’s all Buck can do to focus on each task because if he doesn’t, he feels like he might drown.

And that’s never more the case than when they arrive at Doheny Park. There’s a house on fire, some smaller fires burning in the streets, one car has crashed into another. It’s chaos. Buck has never been gladder that Bobby’s their captain than now because he immediately starts issuing orders and before Buck knows it, the ladder’s being raised so he can try rescue the boy trapped in the house.

The first Buck might have an inkling of a problem with the ladder is the groan it makes as he crosses the joint. It’s enough to make him stop momentarily, but the boy is calling for help so he ignores it, instead waving for the team to extend the ladder further.

“I just need you to hold on, okay? I’m coming for you,” he tries to reassure Alex. “Almost there. I told you, everything’s gonna be fine.”

And that’s when the ladder gives way underneath him.

“No!” he cries out. It’s more luck than anything that has him grab hold of a rung, and he’s definitely lucky that the ladder doesn’t break apart fully. Even so, the fall wrenches on his shoulder and he gasps in pain. Over the noise of his panting breaths and hammering heart, he hears someone call his name, panicked.

“Help!” Alex cries again from the house, but Buck can’t help him any more. The ladder slowly bends further and further, until Buck’s close enough to the ground that he can just let go.

“You alright?” Bobby asks.

“Yeah,” Buck says, still a little breathless. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Bobby turns away to see what else he can try, while Buck dusts himself down and tries to stop his hands shaking from the adrenaline rush. He looks up when he hears Bobby say, “Eddie, what are you doing?”

Eddie’s scrambling onto the roof, dislodging a couple of tiles as he pulls himself up. His foot slips on one, and Buck’s heart skips a beat.

“I feel like, if I ever did that, you would yell at me,” he says to Bobby, but really what he wants to do is scream at Eddie to get down. To stop playing the hero. But then he’s gone, into the house which is still burning merrily. There are a few long seconds and then Bobby’s radio crackles.

“I’ve got the kid, Cap. Just need a way out,” Eddie’s voice comes over it. And that’s their problem right there. They don’t have a way out for them. It was supposed to be through the window with Buck because the fire’s eaten up all the other exits. Unless Eddie takes the kid back over the roof, there’s no way out.

And they don’t have the water to put the fire out.

Buck can’t breathe and he doesn’t think it’s anything to do with the smoke. Bobby looks at a loss for ideas, which makes it even worse. Bobby, who’s always calm in a crisis, who Buck can always use as his centrepoint, is out of plans. He digs his nails into his wrist.

All he can do is stare at the house on fire. The house that his soulmate is currently in. Someone once told him that the pain of losing your soulmate is unimaginable. The worst pain the human mind and body can experience. That’s why so many soulmates die within a few weeks of each other. The pain is too much.

Buck wonders if it’s the same when it’s unreciprocated.

The panic inside of Buck reaches a fever-pitch. The buzzing in his ears is so loud that he thinks he’s hallucinating the planes at first.

“Get under the trucks!” he hears Bobby yelling. Then, quieter, through the radio, “Eddie, we’ve got incoming, brace yourself.”

Buck can’t move for a second, then Hen grabs at his arm, and suddenly he’s scrambling under a truck, just in time to avoid the tonnes of water that comes crashing down a second later. It’s like being under a waterfall just for that moment, all other noise drowned out by the rushing.

When it’s over, there’s dead silence.

Warily, they crawl out from underneath the trucks. All that’s left of the fire now is some smoke and a lot of ash. “Eddie?” Bobby tries to raise him on the radio but there’s no response.

Buck can feel his blood rushing and his heart thumping. For a few moments, he can’t breathe. And then the door opens and Eddie stumbles out carrying Alex. Buck sucks in a lungful of air. And another. His entire body feels unsteady and off-kilter.

It’s a miracle he manages to speak calmly when Eddie comes to stand by him.

“What’s up with the Spider-Man routine?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Eddie shrugs. “I just did it. And prayed a lot.”

*

Buck’s shoulder is still sore when they get back to the station. He’s trying to hide it, but from the looks Eddie keeps shooting him, he’s not all that successful.

“Hey,” Eddie says, as he’s turning to leave. “You’re still coming over for dinner with me and Chris tonight, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Buck tells him. “When do you want me by?”

“Why don’t you just follow me back to my place?” Eddie suggests. “Better than doing a whole detour via yours in this traffic. Besides, I’m sure Chris would be happy to spend as much time with you as he can.” Buck laughs.

“You know I can’t deny Chris anything. Okay, I’ll follow on.” The grin on Eddie’s face says that this was the exact outcome he wanted.

Buck doesn’t mind. For a second, he lets himself think that maybe he would follow Eddie anywhere.

*

He hardly has time to say hello to Carla and give her a kiss on the cheek before Chris has monopolised him. But Buck’s perfectly happy to spend any amount of time with Chris - he’d do anything for the kid after all. So he sits in Chris’s room while Eddie cooks dinner, playing out a fight between an invasion of alien dinosaurs and the firefighters who have to stop them.

“Chris!” Eddie calls, eventually. “Time to wash your hands!”

Buck follows Chris into the kitchen, where Eddie is dishing up food. Something about the scene fills him with a sudden need. He wants this. He wants it every day, to come back to this family. The intensity of the feeling stuns him for a second, and he doesn’t immediately realise that Eddie’s saying something to him.

“Sorry, I, uh, didn’t catch that.”

“I said, is this enough?” Eddie’s holding out a plate piled high with pasta.

“Oh, yeah,” Buck says hastily. “It’s perfect, thanks.”

Christopher chatters away about school as they eat, sometimes so much so that Eddie has to remind him to actually eat. Buck can’t help but smile helplessly at them. And maybe he eats a little slower than usual just so he can spend more time sat at that table, laughing as Christopher retells the disaster of a morning that led to his teacher being glued to her seat.

When they’re done, Buck insists on doing the washing up. It’s the least he can do for Eddie, after all. While Buck washes, Eddie leans against the sideboard and watches.

It’s a little distracting, to be honest. Buck can feel the heat of Eddie’s gaze on him, and more than once, cutlery falls out of his hands and back into the sink.

“Having a bit of trouble there?” Eddie asks teasingly. When Buck turns to face him, his eyes are soft and a smile plays at the corner of his lips. Buck’s heart starts up a jackhammer beat.

“It’s all the soap,” he explains. His voice sounds ever so slightly breathless. “Here, you wanna see?” Then he flicks some of the soapy water at Eddie who jerks back with a yelp. Buck laughs.

“I’ll get you back for that,” Eddie threatens, reaching towards the sink.

“No!” Buck gasps through his laughter. He tries to block Eddie off but Eddie reaches around him to flick some water at Buck.

They’re so close together Buck can feel Eddie’s breath on his face. His laughter trails off as their eyes meet.

Buck’s mind catalogues all the places they’re touching: Eddie’s hand on Buck’s arm, their hips both braced against the counter, Eddie’s left foot leaning into Buck’s right.

Buck’s heart is beating a tattoo in his chest, so loud he’s sure Eddie can hear it. His breath comes out shakily. Eddie’s hand on his arm tightens the smallest bit.

“Dad?” Chris calls suddenly. “Where are my legos?”

“In the box under your bed,” Eddie calls back. He’s pulled his gaze away from Buck and the tension is broken, although he’s as close as ever.

“Found them!” they hear Chris say.

Eddie turns back.

His eyes scan Buck’s face as if looking for something. He bites his lip (Buck’s eyes flick down helplessly) and a frown creases his forehead.

“Is your shoulder alright?” he asks abruptly. “You keep rubbing it.” Buck pulls back.

“Oh,” he says, surprised. He hadn’t realised. His shoulder’s been a dull ache at the corner of his mind for the past couple of hours, he’d just got used to it. “Yeah, I just yanked it today when the ladder broke.”

“Let me check it out for you?” Eddie offers.

“It’s really fine, just sore,” Buck hedges.

“For my peace of mind, then.” It’s an obvious guilt-trip, but Buck lets it happen, lets Eddie sit him down on the sofa and press his fingers into Buck’s shoulder. Buck hisses in pain.

“How’s that?” Eddie murmurs.

“Painful,” Buck tells him dryly.

“What kind of pain?” Eddie presses into Buck’s shoulder again, but this time more gently.

“Like I’ve pulled a muscle more than anything,” Buck says. “I told you it was fine.” Eddie’s hands are still on his shoulder and, as much as he wants to relax into them, he forces himself to sit stiffly upright.

“Mmm,” Eddie hums. His hands are starting to make small circling motions on Buck’s shoulder and back. “Well thank you for indulging my worry then.” His fingers lightly push into Buck’s shoulder and Buck tenses slightly. “Relax,” Eddie murmurs. “I got you.”

Slowly, Buck allows himself to unravel the tension in his spine.

“There you go,” Eddie whispers.

Eddie’s hands are warm, leaving a hot trail over Buck’s skin, even through his shirt, and he shivers. They trace a route up his shoulderblade, thumbs gently digging in as they go, across his shoulders, and back again. With each pass, Buck relaxes further and further.

“Doesn’t feel like you’ve done anything badly to it,” Eddie murmurs, breaking the silence. “Probably gonna feel worse tomorrow though.”

“Yeah,” Buck breathes out. “Probably.”

Eddie’s thumbs catch at a big knot in Buck’s shoulder, and he gasps. Eddie mutters a ‘sorry’, and digs in more. It hurts a little, but it’s a good hurt, and when Eddie releases the pressure, Buck feels less like a person and more like warm goo.

“How’s that?” Eddie asks.

“Feels good,” Buck mumbles.

“Yeah?” Eddie says, digging his thumbs into Buck’s shoulder muscles. “Shannon tells me I have magic hands.” Buck goes ice-cold, any warmth he felt a moment ago sucked out of him, and pulls away from Eddie.

“Well, she’s right,” he says, trying to keep his voice as light as possible. “It feels way better already, thanks.”

“Are you sure?” Eddie asks. “It still felt a little tight to me.”

“No, really,” Buck tries to reassure him, smile feeling wide and unnatural on his face. “It’s fine now.”

“Okay,” Eddie says sceptically. “You want another beer?”

“Nah,” Buck says. “I should get home actually. I’m wiped all of a sudden.” That’s a lie - he’s not sure he’s ever felt this wired in his life.

“Why don’t you stay over?” Eddie suggests. “It’s quicker to get into the station from here anyway.” For a moment, Buck doesn’t know how to respond.

“I couldn’t-” he gets out eventually. “I-”

“‘Course you can,” Eddie tells him. “Besides, Chris will be ecstatic in the morning if you did.” Buck relents. He’s completely incapable of denying Christopher Diaz anything, even if he hurts himself in the process. And maybe, just maybe, a tiny masochistic part of him _ wants _ to stay. To get a taste of what he’ll never have.

*

Eddie bids him good night in the dim light of the hallway, all soft edges and warm eyes. Buck has never wanted him more than in this moment, right when he can have him the least. He could reach out and touch him, run his fingers along his jaw. But he doesn’t. His hands remain by his sides and he says, quietly, “Good night.”

In Eddie’s spare room, he lies staring at the ceiling, tracing the patterns of moonlight filtered through the curtains wavering there. He hears Christopher shifting about in his bed next door. He hears Eddie in the room across the hall, restlessly pacing. A car drives by.

He could get up and go to Eddie. A spark of want sears through him. He could get up. He could see if those looks he sometimes catches Eddie giving him mean what he wants them to mean. He could... he could...

He gets up.

The shadow of a tree flickers across the wall in the moonlight. It looks like it’s reaching out for the doorknob at the same time as Buck, almost willing him to open it. So he does.

The hallway is dark and silent. Buck sucks in a breath and takes a step across the threshold. Eddie’s door looms ahead of him, almost menacingly.

Then it opens.

“Buck?” Eddie whispers.

“I was, uh, just going to get a glass of water,” Buck whispers back. “Sorry I disturbed you.”

“Oh, no, I was checking on Christopher.” There’s an awkward pause.

“I’ll, uh, get that water then,” Buck says.

In the kitchen, he presses his hands against the sink and drops his head with a sigh.

He doesn’t see Eddie on the way back to bed.

*

Christopher’s face when he sees Buck in the morning is enough to make a restless night worth it. He grins widely and yells “Buck!” in delight.

“Yeah, buddy?” Buck grins back from where he’s making coffee in the kitchen.

“You stayed?”

“Yeah, me and your dad had a grown-up sleepover.” Behind Chris, Eddie seems to choke on air, and Buck rewinds what he just said. “Coffee,” he mumbles, feeling the tips of his ears heat up. Eddie laughs.

“C’mon, Chris,” he says. “Let’s get you ready.”

Later, when Buck’s sitting in the car, watching Eddie drop Christopher off at school, he wants. God how he wants. He wants to wake up like this every morning. Wants to make Eddie coffee, to help Christopher get ready for school. He just _ wants_. The strength of that wanting leaves him breathless.

*

It’s Hen and Chim’s barely suppressed laughter that clues Buck in.

“Do we tell them?” he hears Hen mumble in between giggles.

“No,” Chim replies quickly. “It’s too funny.”

At the first opportunity, Buck slips away into the changing room, and stands in front of the mirror. He can’t see anything wrong, anything to suggest what Hen and Chim found so funny. No stickers, he’s not wearing his shirt inside out, noth-

He’s not wearing _ his _ shirt.

Below the LAFD badge are the initials E. D.

He’s wearing Eddie’s shirt.

For a moment, he panics, then he realises that it could be worse. He could be wearing Eddie’s uniform, with the badge that declares DIAZ, instead of his own. That it’s just the shirt? Well that’s the good news.

The bad news is that means Eddie’s wearing _ his _ and hasn’t noticed yet.

He pats down his trouser pockets desperately, hoping he hasn’t yet taken his phone out of them. When he finds it, he sends a quick text off to Eddie. _ Come to changing room, quick. _

Eddie must have had his own phone to hand because he’s there within moments of Buck’s message. “What’s up?” he asks as he comes in. “You alright?” He looks concerned enough that Buck’s thrown for a second.

“Oh,” he says eventually. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. But, uh, turns out we picked up the wrong bags this morning.” He gestures vaguely at Eddie and then himself. “We’re wearing each other’s shirts.” Eddie glances down to check.

“Oh,” he says, surprised. “I wouldn’t have realised.” He looks back up, and there’s something hot in his gaze that makes Buck shift from foot to foot. The want that had filled Buck the previous night washes through him again. He feels like he’s at the summit of a hill and hurtling downwards, a swooping sensation in his stomach. Eddie’s not saying a word, just looking, but the weight of that gaze makes Buck shiver. He wants to take a step forward, to see what would happen.

He remembers where they are.

“Uh, yeah,” he forces out. “Chim and Hen spotted it. We should probably switch back unless you want the piss taken out of you all day.” Eddie blinks rapidly, like he’s coming out of a stupor.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “Of course.”

*

If Buck delays getting ready to go home after the shift that evening, it’s only because he wants to avoid any more of Chim and Hen’s ribbing. At least that’s what he tries to convince himself. Because if that’s the reason he’s doing it, it can’t be because he’s been on edge around Eddie since they swapped their shirts back. It can’t be because the heat of Eddie’s gaze still burns through him, so many hours later. It can’t be because of the guilt that traces through his skin when he thinks about Eddie _ like that_.

It can’t be those things because it _ has _ to be about the jokes.

It has to be.

So he waits until he’s sure everyone’s gone, and heads to the lockers.

Only, not everyone _ has _gone. Hen’s there, stood by Buck’s locker, as if she’s been waiting for him. He can’t help the slight hesitation in his step on seeing her, but he forces a smile onto his face and pretends like it never happened.

“You’re here late,” he says, starting to grab his things from his locker.

“Could say the same about you, Buckaroo,” Hen says. “What’s up?” Buck pauses.

“What do you mean?” he asks, cautiously, still in his locker so he doesn’t have to look her in the eye.

“Buck, you’ve been acting strange all day, don’t think I didn’t notice.” She hesitates, then asks uncertainly, “Was it us? Did we go too far?”

“No,” Buck says immediately. “No, it wasn’t you.” He closes his locker and gives her a weak smile. “Just got a lot on my mind, is all.” Hen looks torn over something, but then her gaze resolves.

“Is it about Eddie?” she asks. Buck hadn’t realised it was possible to choke on air, but apparently it is because that’s what he ends up doing.

“I, uh, I don’t know what you mean,” he tries when he can speak without coughing again. Hen raises an eyebrow.

“I mean this,” she says reaching out and tapping his left wrist. Buck deflates.

He always knew he would be found out by someone eventually. They know each other too well for that not to happen. But the thought of finally saying it out loud makes his heart race and his breath come a little short.

“Hey,” Hen says softly. “Hey, breathe for me.” He draws in a shuddering breath obediently and releases it. “Let’s sit down,” she suggests.

Sat down on the bench, Hen rests a hand on Buck’s back and runs circles across his shoulders. “We don’t have to talk about it at all, if you don’t want,” she says. “I just thought it might help.” Buck lets out a huff that could, generously, be called a laugh.

“I haven’t- I haven’t told anyone,” he admits.

“Not even Maddie?” Hen asks.

“Not even her. She’s probably guessed, but I haven’t told her.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s-” he cuts himself off. _ Disgusting_, his brain provides. He breathes out shakily. “I was always told that it was something to cover up,” he confesses softly. “And I never quite worked out if that meant the soulmate thing or the guy thing, because it could have been either with my dad. So I guess I just do that automatically now. And I know it wouldn’t matter here or with Maddie. The guy thing at least but.” He sighs. “In here,” he points to his head. “I know that.” He gestures to his heart. “In here, not so much.” Hen grabs hold of his hand.

“You know if you ever need help with this bit,” she taps his chest, over his heart. “I’m here for you. All the way.” Buck can feel himself choking up at that, so he gives her a wobbly smile, and tries to swallow back the tears. Hen lets him sit there in silence for a moment, her hand in his. Then she asks, “I assume Eddie doesn’t know.”

Buck gives a soft laugh but there’s no humour in it. “No way, I can’t tell him,” he says. “It would ruin everything. And besides, his soulmate’s Shannon.” He sighs. “I can’t tell him, but it’ll be fine.” But he doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince.

Hen squeezes his hand. “You’ll be alright, Buckaroo,” she says gently. “I know you will.”

*

“Shannon thinks she’s pregnant,” is how Eddie opens up the conversation and Buck almost drops a wrench on his foot.

“Pregnant?” He tries to say it normally, as though the news isn’t like a dagger to the heart. If his voice sounds a little more high-pitched than usual, Eddie makes no mention of it.

“She told me yesterday while we were at the beach with Christopher,” Eddie says. Buck isn’t sure whether he sounds genuinely unenthused by the idea or if he’s imagining what he wants to be true. It almost definitely makes him a terrible person, wishing the non-existence of a baby, he thinks.

“Well, that’s great, right?” he says, trying to inject some excitement into his voice, even as he feels every cell in his body shrivel up and die. Eddie sighs.

“I’m not sure,” he confesses. “If you’d told me, when me and Chris got here, that Shannon would get pregnant, and Chris would have a sibling, then sure, I’d be over the moon. But now? I just don’t know.” Buck frowns.

“Any reason for that?” he asks. He knows he’s prying and that any second now Eddie’s walls are going to go up, but he can’t help it. Eddie glances up, and his eyes catch Buck’s. Buck can’t look away.

“I’m not sure Shannon’s who I want to be with any more,” Eddie says softly. Buck swallows reflexively and Eddie’s eyes flick down, following the movement.

“So what are you gonna do?” he asks, equally soft.

“I’ll have to stay with her, I guess,” Eddie replies. “I can’t abandon her to raise a child on her own, and Christopher would love a sibling.” Buck pulls his eyes away with effort.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, voice rough, making a point to look back down at his work again so he doesn’t have to see the look on Eddie’s face. “But even if she’s not who you want to be with?” _ Way to go, Buckley_, he tells himself. _ That’s your masochism on show again_.

“I couldn’t leave her to do it alone,” Eddie says, but he sounds less than convinced.

She _ left _ you _ to do just that_, Buck wants to yell suddenly. _ She left you_. But he doesn’t. What right does he have when it’s abundantly clear that he is not Eddie’s soulmate, no matter how much he might wish to be.

*

Buck wouldn’t say he’s avoiding Eddie after that, because he hasn’t quite reached the stage where he’s making up reasons _ not _to spend time with him, but he might not be around him quite as much. Maybe.

But if Eddie’s noticed, then he’s not saying anything. Buck isn’t sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. More than ever, his soulmark feels like a burning brand on his skin, no matter how much he reminds himself that Eddie won’t ever be his.

Selfishly, he wishes Ali hadn’t found her soulmate. Some days he can’t stand being around everyone with theirs. It’s on those days he devotes his time to polishing the ladder truck, just to take his mind of things. It raises a few eyebrows - he is, after all, assumed to be somewhat like a large puppy - but he ignores those.

At night, when he removes his watch, and the letters are clear to see, he notices red crescent moon-shaped marks on his wrist. Without being fully aware of it, he’s been digging his nails into his skin.

He doesn’t realise anyone else has noticed until in the truck one day, heading out to a call at a chocolate factory.

Chim’s chatting on about soulmates again - it’s been nearly his favourite topic since he and Maddie cleared the air on everything. Hen rolls her eyes at it, but everyone knows she’s too happy for Chim to stop him. Buck hasn’t seen either Chim or Maddie this truly happy in he doesn’t know how long. So he pastes a smile to his face even as every word Chim says pierces at his heart.

“Hey, is your wrist okay?” Eddie’s voice interrupts Chim. Buck glances up to find Eddie looking at him.

“Yeah…” he says, confused. “Why?”

“You looked like you were massaging it, is all,” Eddie replies.

“I wasn’t,” Buck says reflexively. Then he pauses. “I mean I was, but it wasn’t for any particular reason.” Eddie looks sceptical, but the universe must be smiling on Buck today, because that’s when they arrive at the factory.

*

Pulling someone out of a vat of melted chocolate has to be one of the weirder rescues they’ve had to make in Buck’s time. The man in there is slowly sinking, being dragged under by the mixture, and Buck and Eddie combined can’t pull him out. Buck slips trying, and Eddie places a bracing hand on his shoulder.

Buck tells himself that the reason his heart is beating so rapidly is the adrenaline, nothing whatsoever to do with Eddie, or how it reminds him of Eddie’s hands on him a few nights ago.

It’s really only Chim’s apparent quick thinking that keeps them from seeing the guy drown though. Buck and Eddie are struggling, and even Hen, usually the last of them to give up, is at a loss. So the journey back to the station is filled with quiet and a palpable sense of relief.

It gives Buck time to think. Too much time, if he’s honest. Because all he can think about is Eddie, like a litany, over and over. Eddie’s hands burning their brands into his skin. Eddie’s eyes searing into his. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

Eddie who isn’t his. Eddie who will never be his.

So, even though his wrist says _ Edmundo_, and his heart tells him the same, his brain says to package it all up, stuff it down into a small box, and put it away.

*

Buck’s on top of a ladder truck when he happens to overhear Eddie’s videocall with Shannon. He doesn’t mean to, really he doesn’t, and he would actually rather be anywhere else. But the only way to get down would put him in Eddie’s line of sight, and that would be somehow even worse.

Shannon’s voice comes over the line slightly tinny, and her enthusiasm ever so slightly forced, as she says, “We just had lunch with your abuela.”

Obviously she turns the camera around so Eddie’s abuela is in shot, because Buck hears Eddie say, “Hola.”

“And now, we’re gonna get some ice cream!”

“Oh, ice cream?” Eddie says with a laugh. “Well, I do not envy you putting him to sleep tonight.” Buck wonders if it’s wishful thinking to say that Eddie also sounds less than enthusiastic about conversation.

“When I call you later to complain, just don’t say ‘I told you so’?” Shannon asks.

“All right, I promise.”

“I love you,” she says.

“I love you,” Eddie replies, and this time the faint hesitation before he says anything clearly isn’t just Buck projecting. Even so, he shoves the thought out of his mind. Just because Eddie has hinted at being less than content with Shannon, it doesn’t mean anything. And besides, Eddie still hates the idea of soulmates.

He needs to stop looking for hope when there’s not going to be any.

When Eddie hangs up, Buck takes the opportunity to leap down from the truck. “Ooh! When’s the wedding?” he asks, infusing his voice with as much enthusiasm as he possibly can. Eddie frowns.

“We’re already married,” he points out. Then something seems to occur to him. “Wait. We don’t have to get married again, do we?”

Buck really doesn’t want to get into this conversation right now, so he starts to back away, a smile on his face, though in all honesty it’s probably more like a rictus grin. “Talk to Bobby,” he says. “Maybe he can get you guys a discount.”

He thinks he does pretty well at keeping his voice level but something about the curious look Eddie flicks his way suggests he hasn’t been quite as successful as he thinks.

*

One Saturday, after an eight-hour shift that feels like it’s gone on for eighty-hours, Buck gives Eddie a lift home from the station. Eddie’s car had, once again, refused to start, though this time in the parking lot and not in the middle of his journey home. As they pull up outside Eddie’s house, Buck cracks a yawn.

“Come on in,” Eddie says.

“If I come in, I’ll fall asleep on you,” Buck warns him.

Eddie shrugs. “Like I’d mind.”

And of course, Buck ends up trailing him into the house.

Christopher’s in bed now but Carla’s still up, sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in her hands. “Hey, Carla,” Eddie says. “How was he?”

“Eddie, you know your boy is the most well-behaved soul on this planet,” Carla laughs softly. “He’s never been anything but an angel.”

“Dad’s prerogative to worry otherwise,” Eddie tells her, but the smile on his face is a little worn out and relieved. “Buck, can I make you a up of tea?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Buck says. Another yawn bursts out of him.

“Long shift?” Carla asks as Buck sits down.

“The longest,” he groans. “I swear if I never have a day like that again it’ll be too soon.”

“You said it,” Eddie says, placing two mugs of tea on the table and sitting down himself. “I never thought so many people could be so stupid all on the same day.”

Buck shrugs. “It’s L.A.”

The warmth of the room and the mug in his hands, steam gently drifting into his face, makes Buck start to drift off. He could fall asleep right here, right now, in Eddie’s house, with Eddie’s knee resting against his own underneath the small table.

“You falling asleep there, Buckaroo?” Carla asks, a laugh in her voice.

“Hmm,” Buck mumbles. “Maybe a little.” He forces his eyes open and takes a gulp of his tea. It’s hot, and burns his throat on the way down, but it wakes him up a bit, if only for a moment.

“What did you and Chris do today?” Eddie asks Carla. Buck doesn’t hear Carla’s response because he’s starting to doze again. Their voices are little more than a soothing background hum, and he thinks idly that he’d like to come back to this every day. Back to this kitchen, back to Eddie and Chris.

“Hey,” he hears a whisper on the edge of his consciousness. “Buck?”

Then a warm hand is cupping his cheek and he drags his eyes open blearily. He sees the smile playing at Eddie’s lips, reflecting the smile in his eyes. He’s so close, standing up and leaning in. Buck could close the distance between them.

Suddenly he’s wide awake again, heat buzzing through his veins. He pulls back, and after a second, Eddie’s hand drops and he says, “Oh, you are awake,” in a tone so fake, Buck recoils further.

_ Something _has just happened, but Buck has no idea what.

“Well, I’d best call myself a taxi,” Carla says, breaking the tense silence. She’s looking between them like she knows exactly what’s going on.

Buck wishes he knew too.

“Hey, uh, why don’t I drop you off on my way home instead?” Buck suggests, a little desperately. “It’s not that much a detour.”

“Are you sure?” Carla asks. “You looked half asleep just a moment ago.”

“I’m wide awake, I swear.” Carla looks sceptically at him.

“Eddie,” she says. “If I don’t come by tomorrow, it’s because I accepted a lift from this man.” But there’s fondness in her voice, and she says it with a smile. “Come on then, Buckaroo. My Howard promised me he’d cook tonight, if you can believe it.”

She presses a kiss to Eddie’s cheek at the door, and wishes him good night. “I’ll be by usual time tomorrow,” she promises.

“Thanks, Carla.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, man,” Buck says to Eddie. There’s still something strained between them - Buck can feel it like it’s something physical - but Eddie claps him on the shoulder with a smile.

“Carla, don’t let him fall asleep,” he calls out jokingly.

*

Carla allows him a few minutes of driving in silence before broaching the subject. “So, you and Eddie, huh?”

“What about me and Eddie?” Buck asks, feigning ignorance. The look Carla directs at him is so wholly unimpressed that he huffs a laugh.

“You know _ exactly _what I mean, Evan Buckley.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He takes a moment, chewing his lip as he thinks about what to tell her. “It’s nothing,” he says eventually. “Really. He has Shannon.”

“Didn’t look like nothing,” Carla says softly.

“Well it has to be.”

“Why?” Buck hesitates. His hands are gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles are white. He forces himself to loosen them off.

“Because he’s my soulmate,” he whispers. “But I’m not his.”

“Oh, Buckaroo,” Carla murmurs. Buck forces himself to shrug, and smiles weakly.

“It is what it is,” he says. “I can’t change that.”

*

Buck knows that Eddie had planned to take Shannon out for a meal the night before, so when he shows up to his shift and Eddie is beating the crap out of the punching bag, he’s a little surprised to say the least. Eddie pauses and looks up when Buck walks by. The look on his face is less one of anger, despite his body language of a moment before, and more the look of someone who’s spent the night thinking things over.

“Bad night?” Buck asks a little tentatively. He’s caught off-guard here, having expected everything to be sorted between Eddie and Shannon. This isn’t how he thought things would go.

“You could say that,” Eddie says bitterly.

“You wanna, uh, you wanna talk about it?” Buck offers. Eddie smiles at him gratefully.

“Give me a second to shower?” he asks. Only that has the unfortunate effect of Buck now imagining Eddie in the shower. He swallows against his suddenly dry throat. Eddie’s eyes track the movement and Buck’s throat gets even drier.

“Sure,” he croaks. “I’ll just be upstairs.”

Buck refuses to call what he does then ‘fleeing’, but yeah, okay. He might be fleeing.

*

When Eddie comes upstairs a few minutes later, his exhaustion seems more than just physical. He sits down heavily in the chair opposite Buck and sighs. Without a word, Buck pushes a cup of coffee towards him. Eddie takes it with a small smile of thanks.

Buck doesn’t say anything because he knows Eddie. He knows that all he really needs to do is wait while Eddie forms the words he wants to say.

“Shannon’s not actually pregnant,” Eddie tells him eventually. “She was just late, it turns out.” Buck takes a sip of coffee and tries to process this. “And,” Eddie continues. “She wants a divorce.”

“A divorce?” Buck asks, surprised. “I thought you guys were working things out.”

“We were trying. For Christopher’s sake, I guess.” Eddie sighs deeply. “But even before Shannon thought she was pregnant I wasn’t sure. And apparently neither was she.”

“That’s rough.”

“She, uh, she said that it made her realise that she still wasn’t ready to be a mom again,” Eddie confesses. “That she didn’t want to reach another point where she felt she had to run.” He shrugs helplessly and his hands convulse around his coffee mug.

Without thinking, Buck reaches out and rests two fingers on the back of Eddie’s hand. “Hey,” he says softly. “You know I’ve got your back.” Eddie gives him a tense smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“I’m just worried about how it’ll affect Christopher. He’s just got her back and now...” Eddie trails off.

“So you talk to him. Tell him what’s going on. Did Shannon say anything about visitation?”

“She said she still wanted to see him. I just- I don’t know.” He sighs. “I guess it’s funny because I knew it wasn’t working. I didn’t want to admit it but I knew. But I thought we were on the same page about doing the best with what we had.” He stops, and a silence settles between them. “We used to be soulmates.”

Buck can’t say it’s such a surprise to hear this. He had, after all, suspected as much. He just hadn’t realised that they were no longer soulmates.

“Used to be?” he asks. “How does that work?” Eddie shrugs and looks down at the tabletop.

“I guess somewhere along the way we just stopped being each other’s place to land.” Eddie’s aversion to soulmates makes a lot more sense to Buck now. And as much as Eddie tries to play it off, he can see how much it still hurts.

Buck wants to comfort him somehow but he doesn’t know how. Instead he says, “Chris’ll understand if you tell him. He’s a bright kid.”

“Yeah, he is,” Eddie agrees, glancing up and catching Buck’s eyes. There’s some emotion in them that Buck can’t name, but he can’t drag his gaze away. He chews at his lip nervously, and Eddie’s eyes flick down and back up. So quickly Buck wonders if he imagined it.

“You two are in early.” Bobby’s arrival jolts them both out of whatever kind of trance they were in. Buck realises his hand is still resting on Eddie’s and he pulls back sharply.

“Uh, yeah,” he says hurriedly. “Traffic wasn’t too bad this morning.” Bobby makes an assenting sound, but when Buck looks at him, he’s gazing at them curiously. “Anyone want any fresh coffee?” Buck asks, desperate to the strange tension that’s settling over them. “I think mine’s gone cold.”

“Put a pot on,” Bobby tells him after a second. “Hen’s just on her way.”

As Buck busies himself making the coffee, he has a second to think about what Eddie said. His feelings are a roiling mess and it doesn’t even really have anything to do with him. This doesn’t change the fact that Eddie’s not his soulmate. Nothing is different. He shouldn’t be feeling any different. But his stomach is churning and, underlying it all, he feels a terrible sort of relief at Eddie’s words.

*

A multi-car crash is never a pretty sight. Buck’s seen enough of them to know. But there’s nothing to indicate that this one is any different. Until there is.

Bobby sends Buck and Eddie to help the driver of one of the cars. She’s conscious, but bleeding sluggishly from a cut on her head. Her eyes are panicked though and when she sees them she asks desperately, “Th- there was a lady. Is- is she alright?” Eddie’s too focused on helping her, so Buck pulls back out of the car and looks behind it.

His heart stops.

Lying on the ground, Chim and Hen leaning over her, is Shannon.

Buck swallows convulsively. His hands are shaking.

“Buck? What’s going on?” Eddie asks. Buck can’t speak. He doesn’t want to speak. As long as Eddie doesn’t know- He can’t even finish the thought.

“Eddie,” he croaks and looks over to meet his eyes.

Something in his face must warn Eddie because he’s up and walking away instantly. Buck watches as Chim tries to stop him, hears something about a spinal injury, or worse. _ Or worse_. Even Buck knows there’s no coming back from this.

He has to force himself to turn back to the driver but he manages it. He has a job to do. More than that, he thinks it’s the only way he might get through the rest of this day. He remembers, suddenly, the relief he felt this morning on hearing that Shannon wanted a divorce and a violent wave of nausea almost overcomes him. He closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath. He can’t dwell on this now, not with someone still left to save.

He’s not even sure he’s allowed to feel anything at all.

*

There’s never any question of the 118 filling the hospital waiting area that afternoon. There’s also never been quite such a grim mood hanging over them like a spectre. They all know that Shannon’s chances are less than slim. 

But they wait because it’s Eddie in there with her and they can’t leave him to shoulder this alone.

Buck sits closest to the door, stomach churning still. His fingers dig into his wrist rhythmically, almost as though he’s subconsciously reminding himself that this changes nothing.

Nothing whatsoever.

When Eddie comes out, Shannon’s clothes clutched in his hands, Buck’s the first on his feet, pressing a hand to Eddie’s shoulder. Almost imperceptibly, Eddie leans into Buck’s touch. For a second, they stand there together, alone, and then everyone else is on them, swallowing Eddie up in a hug and his shoulder slips away from under Buck’s hand.

*

Buck is finally forced to move out of Maddie’s place when she and Chim become too much for him to cope with. He’s happy for her, he keeps repeating to himself, but with every repetition, he finds it harder and harder to hold onto. And he doesn’t want to start resenting her for something she has no control over. So he has to go.

The flat he finally settles on is closer to the station than Maddie’s. It’s also smaller, perfect for one person living alone. It has a view overlooking the city, and an open-plan layout. _ It’s perfect_, he tells himself. And when the estate agent leaves, it’s also deadly quiet.

Storeys down, he can hear the faint sound of the traffic on the road. Even when he was living alone at Abby’s, it wasn’t this quiet. And he could always turn on the radio or television and pretend as though someone else was in the room with him. Here, he doesn’t have that choice.

_ Yet_, he forces himself to think. _ You don’t have that choice _yet.

Buck’s never lived alone really. Those five months in Abby’s place by himself don’t count, because he was expecting her back any day. But he’s used to hearing someone about the place, is the thing. And a part of him is distinctly nervous about not having that anymore. He laughs a little at that. He’s twenty-seven and worried about living alone.

But on the way back to Maddie’s, he buys a portable radio.

*

Eddie’s grief is a tangible thing, almost physical. It looms large between them, whenever Buck sees Eddie. He wants to ask if he’s okay, but that seems a stupid question, under the circumstances. Eddie may have said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be with Shannon, but he still _ loved _her. She had still been his soulmate on some level.

So Buck does what he can, helps out with Christopher, makes sure Eddie knows that he’s there for him. And hopes it’s enough.

It’s one night at Eddie’s, sitting on the sofa with a beer in hand, that Eddie brings up the topic.

“I don’t know how to help Chris,” he admits quietly. “He knows about Shannon - I told him - but I don’t know how to _ help _ him.” He rolls the beer bottle back and forth between his hands. “Carla says he’s been waking up with nightmares when I’ve been on the night shift. But he won’t talk to her about them.”

“Have you tried asking him?” Eddie hesitates. “That’s your first step,” Buck says. “Talking to him about it. For both you and him.”

“But how can I? How can I talk to him about it when it’s all my fault?” That makes Buck pause.

“Some leap of logic there,” he says carefully. “How do you figure that one?”

“Because a part of me wished that she was gone,” Eddie whispers. “I wanted her _ gone_. We were trying to work things out because we used to be soulmates and we thought that would be enough, but by the end I just wanted her to leave.”

“That does _ not _ mean you’re to blame for her death.”

“Doesn’t it? She’s gone now and Chris has no mother.”

“Of all the people involved,” Buck tells him fiercely, “you’re the _ least _ at fault here, Eddie. And I know you might not believe it, but if you think that kid would blame you for Shannon’s death? That’s a load of bullshit. It was an accident. A stupid, _ tragic _ accident.” Eddie lets out a shuddering breath. 

“And some fucked-up part of me feels relief for it. _ Relief_. My kid’s mother just died and I’m feeling relieved.”

“You can’t help what you feel,” Buck says softly. He places his beer on the table and rests a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “You know, when Maddie left home at eighteen, I was angry with _ her _ for a bit. For leaving me, and leaving me with dad. See, you can’t help feeling some things, even if they’re irrational, even if they’re ugly. And you feeling guilty about it? That just means you don’t really mean it.” Eddie’s sigh is shaky, so Buck wraps his arm around his shoulder, and drags him into a hug.

As Eddie trembles against him, he runs a hand up and down his back. He wishes he could say something more, to find the words to comfort Eddie, but his voice sticks in his throat. So he keeps his hand on Eddie’s back, tracing his spine, and lets him cry.

When Eddie’s shivering eases, he pulls back and looks up at Buck. His eyes are red, but dry now, and his mouth opens slightly. Buck could lean in, he thinks. Lean in and press his lips to Eddie’s own.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he pulls back too. “Better?” he murmurs.

“Yeah.” Eddie’s voice is rough after the tears, and he clears his throat. He looks a little embarrassed, so Buck lets him draw away fully and stand. “I’m just gonna, y’know, clear myself up,” he says awkwardly.

“Sure,” Buck tells him. He chews at his lip as he watches Eddie leave the room. He wants to have done more, to have told Eddie it would all be okay. But what does he know if it’s going to be okay?

“Buck?” Christopher’s voice interrupts his thoughts.

“Yeah, buddy?” he says turning towards the doorway, where Chris is stood.

“Is dad okay?” He looks so worried in that moment that Buck’s heart breaks a little.

“Come here,” he says and, when Chris reaches him, he opens his arms out. Christopher climbs onto the sofa and buries himself in them. “Your dad’s just sad,” Buck tells him.

“Is it because of mom?” Christopher asks in a small voice. Buck hesitates.

“Yes,” he says softly. “He’s sad about your mom.”

“I’m sad about mom too.”

“I know, honey. Your dad, he’s just…” Buck sighs. “He needs you right now, but he doesn’t know it.”

“Okay,” Christopher whispers. He’s quiet for a moment, just leaning into Buck. “What if I need him too?” Buck has to bite down hard on his tongue to stop the sob that threatens.

“He’ll be there for you,” he tells Chris. “And I’ll be there for both of you. Always.” He feels Christopher nod into his chest.

They sit in silence and, eventually, Buck feels Christopher start to slacken in his arms, drifting off to sleep, breaths evening out. Buck watches him, fast asleep against his chest, and wants.

A sound grabs his attention and he glances up to see Eddie in the doorway. The look on his face makes Buck’s breath catch because it mirrors everything he had been feeling a second before.

“I’ll take him back to bed,” Eddie says, voice rough with something that Buck can’t name. It sends shivers up his spine.

“I got him,” he whispers. He shifts Chris in his arms and stands.

Eddie follows him to Chris’s room, his eyes hot on Buck’s back. As Buck lays Chris down on his bed and places his covers over him, he can feel Eddie behind him. _ Something _ is sparking in the air around them. Buck always wants when it comes to Eddie, but this wanting is more than that. It’s something that makes Buck’s heart stop and his breath halt.

He closes Chris’s door, and Eddie’s right there. “Buck,” he whispers hoarsely. His eyes burn into Buck’s, clear and intense. He takes a step forward, and Buck can feel the heat of his body.

He could take up the invitation in Eddie’s eyes. He wants to with his every atom. He shivers with the thought of it. But he places a hand on Eddie’s chest and pushes him gently. “Not now,” he whispers. “You just- Shannon _ just _ died. I can’t-” He cuts off and takes a step back. “Not now,” he repeats.

Eddie’s eyes spark, but he nods. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Buck asks.

The smile Eddie gives him trembles, but he says, “Yeah, tomorrow.”

It’s one of the hardest things Buck has ever done, walking away from Eddie now. Because he knows, deep down, that this is Eddie wanting a warm body and nothing more. And if he lets it happen, he’s not sure he could cope with the pain.

*

When the bomb explodes on the fire truck, there’s a moment of complete chaos, then silence. Everything feels as though it’s moving in slow motion, the sound coming muffled as if Buck’s underwater. He knows, absently, that his leg is trapped under the truck, a crush injury. But he can’t feel it, and that panics him more.

Through a haze, he sees someone. He doesn’t recognise them, but they’re wearing a bulky vest, holding something attached by a wire. As the figure comes closer, his features resolve into those of a boy. He says something, a confused look on his face, but Buck can’t hear him.

He just wants to close his eyes and give in, but he knows what the others would say if they were here. He thinks about Bobby and Chim and Hen and Athena and Carla. How they love him and he loves them unconditionally. He thinks about Eddie and Chris, who’ve welcomed him into their family with open arms. Finally, he thinks about Maddie, who’s fought with him all the way out of Pennsylvania to make a new life in Los Angeles.

So he doesn’t close his eyes. He holds onto his family and starts to recite their names. _ Bobby, Chim, Hen, Athena, Carla_. Breathe. _ Eddie, Chris, Maddie_. He can hear faint yelling but the muzziness after the bomb blast feels like it’s receding. _ Bobby, Chim, Hen, Athena, Carla_. _ Eddie, Chris, Maddie_. _ Bobby, Chim, Hen, Athena, Carla._ _Eddie, Chris, Maddie_.

The next thing he’s aware of is Chim leaning down and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Still with us, Buck?” he asks.

“Buck, how we doing?” Suddenly Hen’s there as well.

“Kind of numb,” he mumbles. He tunes out again as they start working around him. He’s so tired, but he forces himself to keep his eyes open still. He knows the drill.

“Just hang in there, Buckaroo,” he hears Chim say. He wants to tell Chim he’s trying, he really is, but he can’t force the words out. All his attention right now is on keeping his eyes open.

A hand cups his shoulder. He thinks for a moment it’s Chim back again, but it’s not. It’s Eddie. “Hang on, Buck,” he says. He doesn’t move his hand and Buck finds himself taking strength from its warmth.

He hears Bobby ordering people to line up along the truck. When they first try lift it, the slight lessening of the truck’s weight makes pain jolt through Buck’s leg and he screams in agony. But they can’t raise it enough for him to drag himself out. They try again, and again Buck yells with the pain. For a terrifying second, his vision blacks out with it.

Then it returns and he can see Eddie in front of him, can hear him saying his name over and over. Something causes Eddie to look behind him and Buck realises that the people who had been watching are now rushing over to help. Eddie looks back down at him. “Brace yourself,” he says, grasping Buck’s hand.

This time, when the weight lifts, Buck’s more ready for the agony. His vision blurs, but he doesn’t black out, and Eddie’s hands are helping him pull himself free of the truck. With every inch gained, the pain makes him scream, but finally, _ finally_, he’s free.

He tries to stay awake as he’s carried to the ambulance, but the feeling is rushing back into his leg, and the already red-hot pain is becoming an inferno. He grasps blindly at someone’s hand and squeezes.

The ambulance goes over a pothole and the pain makes him breathless. Black spots are dancing in his vision, and everything’s starting to blur.

“Hang on, Buckaroo,” someone murmurs. “We’re almost there. Keep your eyes open for me, yeah?” Buck wants to speak, but his tongue is heavy and numb in his mouth. His eyelids are slipping shut and there’s nothing he can do to stop them.

The hand in his squeezes and he tries one last time to open his eyes. But the effort is too much, and he finds himself sliding into unconsciousness.

*

The first thing Buck is aware of is the steady beep of a heart monitor. His thoughts are sluggish and his mind bleary, and the effort it takes for him to drag his eyes open almost makes him close them again right after.

“Welcome back,” he hears someone say to his right. Slowly he turns his head and sees Carla there.

“Carla,” he says, voice hoarse and barely there. “You- You’re here.” Carla picks a glass of water up off the table in the corner and passes it to him. He drinks gratefully.

“Of course I’m here,” she tells him fiercely. “Hey, if I see my friend on the news being crushed by a fire truck, I’m here.” Buck’s eyes well with tears suddenly. He struggles to push himself upright, not wanting Carla to see, but she notices anyway, reaching down to steady him.

“Okay, okay, okay, Buckaroo,” she says soothingly. “Alright, alright. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.” Buck wants to laugh, ask her how she knows that. Because she can’t know that, all this is just meaningless platitudes.

“Is it?” he asks bitterly. “Did you speak to the doctor? Did he say anything about how the surgery went?” He can hear the panic creeping into his voice.

“Just that you made it through. And you’re now the proud owner of one titanium rod and four beautifully cobalt-chromed screws. You were hoping for something more?”

“Before they wheeled me in, he, uh he said he didn’t know how it was gonna go.” Buck looks down at his hands where they’re convulsively gripping the blanket.

“You’ll walk again,” Carla tells him, no doubt in her voice.

“Yeah. He- he said he said he was pretty confident about that.” Buck pauses and lets out a shaky breath. “He, uh, he just he didn’t know if I would ever work again.” Carla’s hand latches onto his own and grips it tightly. He meets her eyes.

“Okay,” she says quietly. “I’m not gonna lie to you and tell you that it’s gonna be alright. But I don’t think you need to be borrowing trouble, not yet. Let’s just take this moment and be glad that you’re alive.”

“Yeah,” Buck mutters looking away from her. “Alive and useless. I mean, what’s the point if I can’t work again?”

“I said _ don’t _ go borrowing trouble,” Carla says sharply. “And just because you might not have _ this _ job doesn’t mean you won’t ever have a job you feel the same about again.” Buck feels more tears clogging up his throat and bites down on his tongue. “And you will never be _ useless_, Buckaroo.” She takes a breath, then sits down on the edge of the hospital bed. “You’ve got us, you know that.”

“Yeah,” Buck tries to say, but it comes out more like a sob.

“Oh, Buck,” Carla whispers pulling him into a hug. “C’mere, kiddo.”

Buck feels like he’s shaking apart in her arms, but the warmth of her is grounding too. She rocks him slightly while he clings to her. His breaths come out as strangled and shuddering, but they even out slowly as she rubs circles on his back.

Eventually, he pulls away. Carla brushes his fringe across his forehead and then places a kiss there. “We got you, remember that,” she says. “You’re always gonna be _ our _ Buck.”

*

When Carla’s gone, Maddie pokes her head around the door. She has a weary smile on her face, like she’s been in the hospital all night. Buck supposes she must have been, but he doesn’t really know how long it’s been since he was brought in. He feels oddly unsettled by it all, like he doesn’t fit in his own skin somehow.

“Hey,” she says softly. “How’s my little bro?”

“Sore,” Buck tells her as she comes to press a kiss to his head. “Like I’ve been crushed by a fire truck.”

“Funny that. There’s a few people want to see you, you up for that?” she asks.

“‘Course,” Buck tells her. With a smile and another kiss to his forehead, Maddie turns and leans out of the door.

“You can come in,” she says.

It feels like the entire 118 is crowded into his hospital room. There’s Bobby, with Athena, May, and Harry, Chim and Hen, with Karen, too. And Eddie, with Christopher. His whole family in the room.

Another lump forms in Buck’s throat and he swallows back the urge to cry again. Maddie grasps his hand and squeezes, grounding him.

“You’re all here?” he says confusedly.

“Buckaroo, where else would we be?” Chim replies. “Besides, we gotta make sure you’re actually getting food in here. I think I’m permanently traumatised by what they tried to feed me after brain surgery.”

“You mean _ Bobby’s _ here to save him from hospital food,” Hen says dryly. “If you’d had any say in it, you’d have brought takeout.”

“Harsh, Hen, harsh.”

“And yet…”

Just listening to them bicker settles Buck, makes him feel safe again. He hadn’t realised that that’s what had been making him so _ un_settled, the feeling that he wasn’t _ safe_, but now, with his family around him, he can breathe again.

Maddie lets go of Buck’s hand and walks over to Chim. Buck watches her, a small smile on his face. “Hey,” a voice says quietly next to him.

It’s Eddie.

“How’re you doing?” he asks. Buck gives him a look and he laughs softly. “Yeah, okay. Stupid question.”

“All things considered, I’m great,” Buck says. “But that’s, uh, less than great in the grand scheme of things.”

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs. “But we’ve got your back, you know. We’re all gonna be here for you.” He hesitates for a second then grips Buck’s hand. “In your corner, all the way.” Buck blinks rapidly, looking down then back up at Eddie.

“I know,” he says softly.

Eddie’s eyes flicker down their hands, to Buck’s left wrist, then back up to meet Buck’s own. Buck swallows and, disentangling himself from Eddie’s grip, turns his hand over, so his wrist is now pressed into the bedsheets. Eddie looks about to speak.

“You’re not even listening are you, Evan?” he hears Maddie say.

“Huh?” he turns to face her, but not before he sees something flash across Eddie’s face. Buck isn’t sure what he’d call that look in that second. (His stomach flutters with something akin to realisation, something like _ oh_.) Whatever that look means, it’s gone a moment later, and if Eddie’s smile seems a bit strained from then on? Well, Buck’s not going to mention it. He’s glad not to.

*

“Are you sure you won’t stay with us?” Maddie asks as she follows Buck into his flat. “We don’t have stairs, you could sleep in a proper bed.”

“Mads, it’s fine,” Buck reassures her. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of you two lovebirds.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem,” she tries, but relents when Buck gives her a look. “Okay, but you call me if you need help, you hear me? Whenever.”

“You’re about the fifth person to offer that today alone,” Buck tells her. “But okay. Only if it doesn’t disturb you and Chim.”

“I said _ whenever_, Evan,” Maddie insists. Buck makes it to the sofa and sits down heavily.

“Maddie,” he says, looking up and meeting her eyes. “I promise you, I can look after myself. You don’t need to be hovering over me.”

“You’re forgetting I know you,” Maddie tells him dryly. “And I’m not going to just let you wallow, little bro.”

“Wallow in what?” Buck asks, but even as he says it, he knows it’s weak. Maddie comes to sit next to him, and takes his hand.

“This, the injury, not being able to work for months. If you ever find it hard, you come to me alright? And don’t you even think you’d be burdening me with your problems or something. This is what siblings are for.” Buck bites his lip.

“And what if I never go back to work?” he asks quietly.

“You will,” Maddie says with a certainty Buck wishes he had. “I know you will. But, if for whatever reason you don’t, we’re all still here for you. All the way.” Maddie leans over and presses a kiss to Buck’s forehead. “You’ll be alright,” she murmurs.

*

Buck’s sitting on his sofa as usual when someone knocks on the door. He’s been home a few days now, and everyone’s visited him at least once. Besides Eddie.

He hasn’t seen Eddie since he first woke up after the surgery. So, the only conclusion that he’s been able to draw is that Eddie saw Buck’s soulmark and freaked out. Buck can’t blame him, not after everything that happened with Shannon.

But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

He eases himself up off the sofa and makes his way slowly to the door on his crutches. He opens it, expecting to see Maddie, but it’s not her.

It’s Eddie.

Buck finds himself breathless all of a sudden. He hasn’t seen him in almost two weeks and now he’s standing right in front of him, shifting nervously from foot to foot. It’s nearly enough for Buck to forgive him then and there, but he can’t let himself do that. If there’s anything having days of nothing to do but think has done for him, it’s make him realise that they have to have this out. Buck has to have this out, if only for his own peace of mind.

“Can I come in?” Eddie asks.

“Um, yeah, sure,” Buck mumbles and guides himself back on his crutches so he’s not in the way. From the expression on Eddie’s face, he thinks he knows how this conversation is going to go. Probably something about how Eddie values him as a friend, but it’s _ just not like that_.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Eddie says, closing the door behind him. “I needed time to think.”

“To think?” Buck asks, confused. Already this conversation is not quite going in the direction he envisaged.

“We need to talk,” Eddie tells him. “But I think you already knew that.” Buck doesn’t know what to say to that, so he settles for nodding silently. “We should sit,” Eddie prompts, like Buck’s lost track of what’s going on.

He might not be so far off the mark there.

They sit on the sofa and an awkward silence settles over them. It’s a departure from their usual. Buck doesn’t think he’s ever felt this awkward in Eddie’s presence before. Eddie looks like he’s trying, and failing, to put what he wants to say into words.

“I don’t really know where to start,” he confesses eventually. “I had everything straight in my head coming here, and now…” Buck bites his lip. Eddie’s eyes flick down briefly and then back up to meet Buck’s own.

Something resolves in them.

Buck jumps when he feels Eddie’s cool hands on his left wrist. They creep to his watch strap and start undoing it.

“Eddie-” Buck starts.

“Trust me? Please?” Eddie asks, hands stilling. Helplessly, Buck nods.

Eddie removes the watch, revealing a tan line and the bold black name scrawled across Buck’s veins. _ Edmundo_. He runs a thumb over it and Buck shivers.

“I need to show you something,” he says. Almost absentmindedly, his thumb traces over Buck’s wrist again. Buck would give anything never to have to move from this spot, but Eddie pulls his hands away and leans down to pull off first his shoe, then his sock.

Across the arch of his foot is handwriting that is so unexpectedly familiar Buck has to blink a few times to make sure he’s seeing it right.

Or that could be the tears that are welling up in his eyes. Because the name there is _ Evan_. He drags his eyes away from it and up to meet Eddie’s. The hope in those eyes is enough to make the tears start to fall. Very embarrassingly. Buck’s full-on crying now. Eddie looks a little worried, so Buck grabs his hand and squeezes.

“I thought you didn’t have a soulmate. I thought you didn’t believe in soulmates,” he says shakily, tears blurring his voice.

“I didn’t,” Eddie confesses. “And, to be honest, I didn’t even realise it was you until the other day in the hospital.”

“You didn’t?”

“Believe it or not, I somehow managed to spend the entire past year not knowing your actual first name,” Eddie says, a wry twist to his lips. “It was only when Maddie called you Evan that I managed to put two and two together.” He paused. “Though maybe Hen and Bobby gave me a bit of a push.” Buck laughs and rubs at the wetness of his cheeks. Eddie drags his thumb across the inside of Buck’s wrist again.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he says quietly. “I was so confused, it took me a while to figure things out.”

“Confused?” Buck manages to ask, his mind still half on the trace of Eddie’s thumb across his veins.

“I always thought that finding your soulmate would be this big moment, like, you would _ know _ instantly. But it’s not. It’s quieter, slower. So my heart was telling me that it was you, but my head was still stuck on Shannon or the name on my foot. And then I heard your name in the hospital and I realised ‘oh, it _ is _ you’. You’ve been my soulmate since I first met you, but I fell in _ love _with you before I even knew you were my soulmate.”

“Stop that,” Buck says, feeling himself choke up again. “You’re gonna make me cry even more.” Eddie laughs, this time a little watery himself. They fall silent. “I never thought this might happen,” Buck whispers. “I never let myself think it.” A frown creases Eddie’s forehead and Buck reaches out a hand to press it away. “But now…” he trails off because he can see from Eddie’s face he understands.

“But now.” Eddie leans in close. “Buck,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to Buck’s, hand coming up to cup his face. “Buck.”

“‘Buck, Buck, Buck’, you sound like a chicken,” Buck laughs. He looks into Eddie’s eyes, those soft brown eyes, and presses a kiss to the heel of Eddie’s hand. Eddie’s thumb traces along his cheekbone.

“Buck,” he repeats, a smile growing on his face. Then he leans in and presses a kiss to Buck’s mouth. Buck’s eyes flutter closed and he presses back.

When they pull apart, a contented smile is playing at the corner of Eddie’s lips. Buck rests his head in the hollow between Eddie’s neck and shoulder, and presses his own smile into Eddie’s collarbone.

*

Eddie’s probation period ends on a Wednesday. The sun is shining, despite the biting cold, as if it too knows what an important day it is. Buck insists on being there as well, even with his cast and crutches. “I can’t _ miss _ it,” he says intently.

So there he is, sat watching as Chris delivers Eddie’s helmet to him. It’s the happiest he’s felt in forever, surrounded by his family and his soulmate. It’s the kind of happiness he never thought he’d get to experience, the kind that makes him feel like he might burst out of his skin. He keeps finding himself grinning for no particular reason except that he’s happy. When he’d told Maddie about it all, she’d burst into tears and pulled him into the tightest hug she could. He’s caught her flicking looks at him all afternoon, like she too can’t contain her happiness.

Hen comes up to him after the ceremony’s finished, a knowing smirk on her face. “Given that a certain someone has had a goofy smile on his face all week, I take it things went well?” she asks.

“Hen,” Buck says helpless against the smile spreading across his face, yet again. Hen grasps his hand and squeezes.

“I’m happy for you both,” she whispers.

And then Eddie’s in front of him, face flushing as his family watches on. “Hello,” he whispers.

“Hey,” Buck says and then pulls Eddie into a hug. Eddie’s face tucks into Buck’s shoulder and presses a kiss there. Buck can hear the rest of the 118 in the background, but his world has narrowed down to Eddie’s warmth, his hands against his back, and the puff of his breath against his neck.

And there’s nowhere he’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> title from dermot kennedy's "dancing under red skies"
> 
> disclaimers etc etc
> 
> thank u to anna @heresthepencil on twitter for beta reading and putting up with my constant need to add more angst. any remaining errors are mine (but please don't tell me about them).


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